Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

People often attribute the government's inability to solve a problem even after throwing billions of dollars at it; as a sign of incompetence. While there is plenty of incompetence within government; I think the 'Preserve the Problem' response is mostly to blame.

If we 'solved' crime, homelessness, drug use, poverty, etc.; then budgets would decrease and political power would diminish. Those in charge of solving the problem often have the least incentive to do so.

Nice article, interesting to keep an open mind. On "No. 0002. Preserving problems", it can happen to people too, no need for a complex system at the size of a company. I have often noticed recognized experts keeping the root of the problem unsolved because it was justifying their position. I may even have been subject of this curse. As an expert, you may know the root cause but have no incentive to solve it and it can be harder to mobilize ressources to solve the root cause than to keep solving the superficial issue. It is management or outside help role to identify and push for solving problems at their root, but it takes time and dedication because of expertise. As most of the time, incentives explain nearly everything.

The "meta" problem is that political in-fighting usually results in local optimization everywhere. Various departments throw each other under the bus to steal budget/people/resources. When leadership finally decides to right the bus, they hire an outside consultant; this is an important signal to the departments to stop the nonsense and tell the consultant what everyone knows but doesn't want to talk about. Serious problems require serious solutions. It is much easier to say if Y department would give us X, then line go up forever.

Somehow made me think of every 'modern' HR department.

Seems related to the four risk management strategies:

- Avoidance

- Mitigation

- Transference

- Acceptance

There is a fourth that the author would never mention:

Hire consultants about the problem

The pushing problems around under the guise of solving them for political gain is what corporate and government malfeasance is all about.

The better you are at the game the higher you climb!

reminds me of an old meme

> have "problem"; don't care: no problem

> … they inadvertently perpetuate the problem

“Inadvertently”? Seldom.

The problems you have are solutions to the problems you don't want to admit to yourself are actually having.

Three more common ways of responding to a problem:

Weaponize it.

Study it.

Blog about it.

Not my problem - the best kind of problem.

There’s a fourth: deny

The company for which I work seems to be run by engineers. When learning to be an engineer you're taught that doing nothing is always a valid option. In Army leadership courses we were taught that ANY decision is better than NO decision.

My company is stifled by a bunch of engineers in leadership positions who always choose to defer up the chain rather than make a decision themselves.

The most common response I see is "unfortunately this problem is impossible for us to fix because I can't be bother.. err I mean because of these technical reasons. Yes definitely that."

hug of death?