Ian Mitroff, founder of Mitroff Crisis Management, Inc., and widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of crisis management, was kind enough to take the time for sharing an interview with us.
The topic is the important and thought provoking book Dirty Rotten Strategies: How We Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely, that he co-authored with Abraham Silvers.
Thanks to Ian Mitroff for his time and for his insightful and informative answers.
What was the background to writing this book Dirty Rotten Strategies: How We Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely?
Ian Mitroff: For years, I have worked with decision-makers in all types of organizations, public and private, to help them improve on how they solve important problems and make crucial decisions. While the executives and mangers that I have worked with are intelligent, they have not been educated on how to formulate problems from multiple perspectives. As a result, more often than not they end up solving the wrong problems precisely because they pick the first formulation of a problem that they happen to chance upon. What good does it do to solve the wrong problems? Not much since it is a tremendous waste of time, energy, etc., and it often leads to a crisis, so that you are worse off than when you started. In other words, you end creating worse problems than the original ones with which you started.
You write in the book that we are often lured into solving the wrong problems with the wrong answers. What do you mean by that?
Ian Mitroff: Most of us are the prisoners of our education, profession, job position, etc. That is, our education, specialty, etc., predisposes us to see certain problems and to formulate them in terms of the preferred variables of our chosen field. Thus, engineers naturally see technical variables and focus on technical problems; economists see economic problems, etc; but in doing so, they often neglect the human variables and the broader context in which all problems are situated. As a result, they do not recognize the full dimensions of the problems we face. By solving only a part of the real problem, they thereby solve the wrong problem.
What types of errors do business people, and those in other government and non-profit organizations make?
Ian Mitroff: They don’t examine and challenge their fundamental assumptions about every aspect of their business or organization. For instance, are we pursuing the right business strategies? Are we trapped in an old, outdated mission?
In general, people bound the problems they are attempting to solve too narrowly. That is, they don’t take a big enough look at the problem. And they don’t look at multiple formulations of a problem.
Ian Mitroff (photo left)
You mention health care in the book as being a very difficult problem and that the real problem is being overlooked. What is wrong with how that issue has been addressed?
Ian Mitroff: The problem with health care is that it rests upon a number of fundamental assumptions that, while they certainly have been raised and challenged to a certain extent, need to be raised even more. For instance, it is not true that government run health programs are always less efficient and less innovative than private programs. It is also not true that the private sector is always more innovative, cost-effective, etc. So again, we really don’t challenge our fundamental assumptions systematically and systemically.
Business people encounter many crises in the course of doing business. How can business people be sure they are solving the right problem in the right way that is best for the customers and for society as a whole?
Ian Mitroff: Again, by looking at all problems from multiple perspectives. For instance, consider health care. There are obviously short-term cost considerations, but there are also long-term systemic considerations (how do we reinvent the entire health care system?). Health care is not the elimination (decrease) of disease, but it also the increase of well-being. Thus, you obviously need both, but you need to be taught to appreciate both before you can integrate them into a coherent system. The problem is that people take sides saying that one is more fundamental than the other when they are not.
How has the media contributed to the problem of asking the wrong questions that result in the wrong answers?
Ian Mitroff: By devoting enormous attention to non-events--such as the helium balloon episode--and by creating pseudo-celebrities. By using of all kinds of gimmicks such as computer-enhanced images that are “better than the ‘real thing’,” the media divert our attention from focusing on the really important problems. Because the really important problems are too scary for most of us to face, the media help us to avoid facing them by making everything into a “fun game show” or “reality TV” that sanitizes everything.
How can the education system be improved to teach students how to ask the right questions and to insist upon the right answers?
Ian Mitroff: By getting away from canned exercises at the end of textbooks and giving students real problems that they have to formulate from multiple perspectives such as “Should we stay in Iraq?”
Exercises are not problems. First of all, they are already pre-formulated for the student so that he or she doesn’t have to go through the difficult process of formulating the problem. For another, exercises have a single “solution,” which real problems never do. Thus, we have to educate students on how to formulate problems correctly, and that problem formulation comes before and is an integral part of problem solving.
How can changing the type of questions asked in our society improve the life of all citizens?
Ian Mitroff: By not wasting our energy on solving the wrong problems that only create worse ones.
What is next for Ian Mitroff?
Ian Mitroff: I want to write a book of fables to get the ideas across in an even more powerful and accessible format.
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My book review of Dirty Rotten Strategies: How We Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely by Ian I. Mitroff and Abraham Silvers
Ian I. Mitroff (photo left) founded Mitroff Crisis Management, Inc. in 1995. MCM draws upon a nationwide network of associates and specialists who are available for crisis management projects.
Dr. Mitroff is widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of crisis management. He specializes in crisis prevention, strategic planning, and the design of ethical work environments. Known for his thinking and writing on a wide range of business and societal issues, Dr. Mitroff has published over 350 papers and articles and 26 books, including Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger And Better From A Crisis, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, and Managing Crises Before They Happen.
Dr. Mitroff is a University Professor at the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management, Alliant University, San Francisco, a Visiting Professor at Institute of Business and Economic Research, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy, School of Public Health, St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. He is also a Senior Investigator in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, University of California, Berkeley.
He is Professor Emeritus from the Annenberg School for Communication and the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, where he was the Harold Quinton Distinguished Professor of Business Policy and the founder and director of the USC Center for Crisis Management.
