Hopefully I am starting to convince you that leaders working in organizations today should adopt and modify their leadership and management (i.e. decision-making and level of control) to the particular nuances and context of the situation at hand. Last time I presented the Stacey Matrix as a framework for leaders to do just that. I also mentioned Keith Grint's Critical - Tame - Wicked framework, which is very similar in concept to the Stacey Matrix. I've posted about Keith Grint and wicked problems several times in the past (see, in particular, "What style of leadership works best? It depends on the problem at hand..." but also "Murphy's Law, the U.S. Navy SEALs, and High Reliability Organizations", "Wicked", and "...like a stand of trees").
Grint writes, "Much of the writing in the field of leadership research is grounded in a typology that distinguishes between Leadership and Management as different forms of authority...with leadership tending to embody longer time periods, a more strategic perspective, and a requirement to resolve novel problems." Well that is certainly the classic distinction between leadership and management, at least in most of the literature that I've read, but I want to dig a little deeper into this distinction. Perhaps Ralph Stacey was right - the application of leadership versus management should depend upon the type of problem at hand. The classic tools of scientific management may work for the simple problems that organizations encounter, but we unfortunately live in a VUCAT world and our problems are never quite that simple.
Grint further writes, "Another way to put this is that the division is rooted partly in the context: management is the equivalent of déjà vu (seen this before), whereas leadership is the equivalent of vu dàjé (never seen this before)." He continues, "If this is valid then the manager is required to engage the requisite process to resolve the problem the last time it emerged. In contrast, the leader is required to facilitate the construction of an innovative response to the novel problem, rather than rolling out a known process to a previously experienced problem." Here is where his Critical - Tame - Wicked framework comes into play:
Again, the framework follows the classic 2x2 matrix with the degree of uncertainty on the vertical axis and the need for collaboration and/or compliance on the horizontal axis. Rather than the classifying problems as simple, complicated, complex, or chaotic as in the Stacey Matrix, Grint uses the terms critical, tame, and wicked, depending on where on this 2x2 matrix the problem falls.
Tame problems are analagous to Stacey's simple and complicated problems (but really, how many problems in our VUCAT world are truly simple?). They are those problems that, while complicated have probably occurred before. The solution to Tame problems is fairly straightforward. Here, Management probably works best.
Wicked problems, analagous to Stacey's complex problems, have probably never occurred before. The solution to Wicked problems aren't readily apparent, and they may be as complicated and complex as the problem itself. Here, the Leadership style that leverages the expertise of the group ("deference to expertise") fits the best.
The last category is most similar to Stacey's chaos, which organizations should try to avoid at all costs. When you think of Critical problems, think of a crisis. The world is falling apart all around you, everyone is looking to you to tell them what to do. In other words, with Critical problems, Command is the best approach.
So what is exactly the difference between wicked problems and tame ones? I've alluded to some of the differences between these two types of problems above. Let's look at the problem of climate change - is there a straightforward solution here? Not really. Are we able to apply some of the lessons we've learned in the past? Probably not. If the solution was readily available and straightforward, we would've probably done so by now. So climate change is really a wicked problem. In this same vein, increasing the utilization of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind would be a tame problem. Make sense?
1. They do not have a definite formulation.
2. They do not have a "stopping rule" (i.e., there is no way to tell for sure when you've reached a solution).
3. There is no way to test the solution to the problem - trial and error approaches will not work (sounds a lot like what High Reliability Organizations have to contend with, right?).
4. There is no real end to the number of approaches or solutions that can be attempted.
5. Every problem is unique and has probably never been dealt with before.
6. They can always be described as a symptom of another problem (e.g., climate change is a symptom of global warming, etc).
Next time, I want to introduce one last framework for describing problems, the Cynefin Framework, and then I will hopefully tie all of these last several posts together in a nice package!
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