How is it an entire world, with about 26 countries, all super-technologies and brightest brains deployed, cannot find a Boeing 777 flight that went off-course? How is it also that having deployed three teams of accounting experts, and all due processes being followed religiously, a registrar of societies member cannot find nor explain the loss of about RM800,000 from their annual accounts?

How is it then a ministry which claims to have all due processes publicly recorded, with a fancy website and customer enquiry formats, cannot keep a basic promise of service delivery made on their website? What really is the problem in all these cases?

Limited problem-analysis

How is it that the Home Affairs Ministry cannot routinely renew an Australian’s professional visa originally granted for two years, when only one year was used up to date? Or, how can an entire team of doctors and nurses at a government clinic not diagnose my friend’s two-month-old cough with traces of blood in his system, when another doctor at a private hospital took only 10 minutes with a stethoscope to diagnose the problem accurately?

Why is it also that six doctors who came to review my friend’s water in the lung problem each asked the same intriguing question; how did he land up in the National Heart Institute (IJN), when in none of the previous visits (for at least a couple of years) was he ever diagnosed with this specific problem? Why? Why? Why?

My analysis is that most people are not taught good problem analysis, to then do even better problem solving. Let me share my experience of teaching this subject at the National Institute of Public Administration (Intan) years ago.

Good problem analysis

We used to teach that any good problem analysis must contain four important steps which we acronymed as DEEP analysis. Now, what are these four important steps, which are used intuitively by most of us for all problem-solving; whether to undertake a formal PhD or which road to select on a rainy day when going somewhere new?

  • First, describe the problem at hand as clearly as you can identifying both your idealised version of what can or should happen, and differentiate it from the actual situation facing realities. For example, in our modernised and technological world of synchronised events and converged technologies we assume that a 777 cannot simply disappear with everyone being ignorant about the matter. But, in reality, that is what happened.
  • Then, explain your assumptions about the cause and effect factors you use to explain what happened, as a hypothesis of the gap between the actual and the ideal. For example, we can assume four general theories of what could have possibly happened in the case of MH370. For example, human factors, technology factors, environmental factors, failure of standards and ethics of agreed values.
  • Next, evaluate all identified critical factors in terms of contributing factors by gathering data and information from ground research as per other past similar activities. This is hard-core on the ground research and such information is critical for real problem solving. In a typical PhD research, we usually do this upfront as review of literature well before problem definition and then design of research methodology.
  • Finally, prescribe the solution premised upon all data and information from your analysis but being careful to reject all false or non-relevant hypotheses, once we fully understand all the constraint lines and what in linear programming is called ‘the area under the curve.’ This then becomes the search area for solutions; regardless of how many times you have to change or limit this area under the curve.

Managing the execution

Too often the problem analysis is done by serious researchers and those who have subject matter knowledge and competent knowledge about problem resolution. But the execution is ‘abdicated to those operational people on the ground’, but without a full and complete theory and analysis of varying hypotheses.

Therefore, when the Australian government appointed a retired air vice-marshal to coordinate this reporting and developments so that the politicians can give their time to more important events, they recognised the essential challenge of both tasks; coordination and also communication. After all were we all not taught in Management 101 about POSDCORB?  Did not CO stand for both coordination and communication?

The art of communication

Good, effective communication needs a competent knowledgeable officer, but also one with a very good command of the language of choice, and most importantly a pleasant but somewhat serious demeanour. The person should not joke or clown about things, but should always have a friendly relational face but should study and know their audience.

In presentation, every time, it is important to state context before content. This has been our abject failure when it came to the MH370. Each briefing saw people asking questions about false and wrong hypotheses which should already have been publicly rejected. The failure is related to the lack of new context definitions for the renewed and revised hypothesis being pursued.

Informed competence

Should one be a specialist or a generalist in such complex problem solving and resolution?  To me, this is where real competence and experience lies and related to one’s passion in terms of the management or leadership roles.

Most ordinary managers are only focused upon system maintenance at previous levels of delivery. The majority are also not leaders; they cannot command the respect and admiration of their followers. Too often they only use authority of the office to get the job done.

Today’s work challenges require both information and knowledge but also a lot of experience. Even if one lacks the knowledge with experience, they have to be acquired quickly if one is trained to ‘learn, unlearn and relearn’. Unfortunately most are not prepared with this learning philosophy. I call them the uninformed and incompetent.