Resisting the Quick Fix

A lot of attention is paid to developing problem solving skills in students of all ages. Perhaps less mentioned, but equally important for most industries, are professionals skilled in change management.  As rates of change seem to speed up, skills for adapting to transitions and solving brand new problems will only grow in importance. But, despite the growing speed of change, we should consider the downsides of the fast fix. In many situations, we should favor a future-oriented mindset using heritage-building as a means to replace a fast fix with a lasting fix.

Most industries face a future of rapid change, whether due to technology, shifts in public opinion, political or policy changes, global events with far reaching impacts, or any other source of internal or external change. And while solving problems and managing change will be championed as desirable professional skills, we should also be focused on our abilities to manage change in a way that has long term success. Without realizing it, we often get distracted with fast results over lasting results. In professional problem solving, we really need to talk more about resisting the quick fix. 

A book I read in January really got me thinking about quick fixes. In Amy Edmondson’s The Right Kind of Wrong: The science of failing well, she talks about the importance of anticipating downstream consequences. Too often we prioritized actions that provide a solution in the short term, failing to consider the potential results of the decision in the future. We don’t think about the downstream consequences of a decision. If change happens fast in our profession, we may be even less likely to think long term before deciding on a course of action.  
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As Edmondson explains, workarounds or short-term fixes often create the illusion of effectiveness. You feel successful when you implement a workaround that confronts the problem you face. You can move on quickly from it. Herein lies the problem. Not that we’ve implemented a fast fix (sometimes you NEED to act with speed). But rather, that we move on from the problem once we’ve applied the quick fix. Our attention goes elsewhere. As Edmondson explains, the problem with most workarounds is that they can actually make things worse in the long run. When we have a quick fix we feel gratified, successful.  We don’t spend time doing second-order problem solving, where we fix the issue at hand AND prevent reoccurrence of the problem. Over the long term, its second-order problem solving that will build strong systems…but we don’t do this hard work when we fix fast and move on. Likewise, our organizations may not invest in innovative ideas that improve the long-term system because they can’t see past the quick fix. The problem(s) dissolve in the here-and-now. 

Those who do the best second-order problem solving and the least amount of quick fix workarounds are likely those who are future-minded. As I think about this more, I would also wager a bet these are the rarest people, those who consistently prioritize the future. 

When it comes to focusing on one of three timescales (past, present, or future), the past and the present are, frankly, easier to prioritize. The past includes people we know, our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. These are people we’ve maybe met or else grown up hearing stories about.  Honoring their memory by focusing on preserving something from their lifetime (or earlier) may be easy to get behind. Likewise, it’s easy to be present-minded. We see the results of work focused on the here and now, and perhaps benefit from it personally. We live through the consequences, successful or not, of actions that are meant to change something in the present.  Likewise, we can imagine suffering from the failure of not changing something that will impact us in the present-day.

Its prioritizing the future that’s the hardest to sell. Maybe we can get people on board with changes that will be experienced by their children, but when we are talking about generations we may never meet? That’s different. This may be a root cause for why projects that fix a problem too far in the future won't receive as much buy-in. Of course, there is also discomfort with the inability to fully predict the future. Because of that, these types of projects can never act in full certainly of the problems forecasted.  Without a doubt, many people like certainty before they put their time and money into something. Understood.

The problem with this, of course, is that some things take considerable effort long before the point when the system fails or the change occurs. History is filled with examples of civilizations that acted resilient against major changes…and those that did not. Often, the resilience can be seen in actions that stretch generations, not just years. But again, getting past and present-oriented thinkers excited about future-focused initiatives is tricky. Arguably, this is where urban planners, environmental specialists, social scientists, medical researchers…, anyone whose work may span generations of influence into the future, need to focus. 

So how do we rally support behind work needed now for impact into the future? How do we build systems that produce century-long outcomes, systems of true strength, resilience, and longevity? I would argue one way is to frame our work as heritage-making. 

Heritage is often portrayed as working to protect something from the past, a clearly past-oriented pursuit, with present-minded considerations.  But we need to shift…or at least add…a future time-frame. We need to inspire a desire to create legacies, encouraging ourselves to care deeply not only about our ancestors and our communities today, but for the humans who will walk this earth when we are gone. This is no simple suggestion, nor will not look the same in the many industries that could benefit from adopting a heritage approach.  But its one I feel compelled to offer. 

See if you can re-imagine your work as heritage-making. How can you create a legacy in your field that will stretch beyond your career or your lifetime? How can you amplify the voices of future-minded colleagues, bringing them together with those more past and present-minded (there is, afterall, great value in combining all three). In the end, it might be far more satisfying to create legacies than quick fixes. It might be far more rewarding to break away from all of those solutions treating surface symptoms. Heritage-making projects can build resilient systems, abandoning the quick fix mentality for solutions capable of surviving change ...even for a future not fully known.