Plutarch, the Greek historian and philosopher, was a celebrity. People would gather at his villa near Delphi to discuss and debate. He was a priest at Delphi too, “translating” the sounds of the Oracle into cryptic prophesies. He thought that animals had at least some consciousness and should be treated well. He was a vegetarian – at least partly. And he cared about chickens and eggs.
In the Symposiacs , he put the question of “which came first – the chicken or the egg” into a form we’d recognise today. It wasn’t just a riddle for Plutarch. It was important. How you resolve this question had implications for whether the world was created and how.
In the less lofty world of fixing performance problems, it’s got major implications too.
Is your agency messing up the needs assessments because people don’t know how to do them? Or is it that the environment doesn’t help them do it right? Either could be making it look like the other is true. Yet you don’t want to be stuck with a training solution to a work environment problem. Nor do you want to fix an environment where people really don’t know what they’re doing.
You have to work out which came first – the chicken or the egg.
What’s going on in your analysis at this point?
You’re identifying a problem. You’re looking at what will be different when it’s resolved. You’re working out what people need to do to make that happen. You’re looking at why people aren’t doing that already. And you’re collecting a whole host of reasons why they aren’t.
Let’s go back to needs assessment. Say that when your team does them, they always generate recommendations for the kinds of project that your agency normally runs. You suspect that real needs are being missed. There are people suffering because of that.
Not only that, but donors don’t agree with your analyses and are reducing the amount of funding that you get. And you’re increasingly seen as behind the times and doing boring work that doesn’t really get results.
Lots of agencies would leap to needs assessment training. But what else might be going on?
It could be that your assessment teams have the wrong people on them, with only technical specialists from a particular sector. It could be that proposal writers don’t use recommendations about other issues so the teams stopped presenting them. It could be that your agency is known for food aid, so when your teams are out in the village, people only tell them about food – they think that’s all you’re interested in. It could be that the assessment study is good, but the report is superficial. There are lots of reasons.
Some are just systems. Some are just skills. Many are complex.
Let’s say the teams don’t have the right people on them. For a manager, that could be a straight fix to the process. You don’t OK any assessment trips without confirming that there is a mix of skills and that they will at least touch on other sectors. You can give them clear messages about what you want to see. These are not skills solutions.
But there might be learning that helps. A team that’s had poor experiences with different sectors might need to learn about how to cooperate. They might need to learn to ask questions in a way that is respectful and encourages full responses.
Now you’ve got a challenge – you’ve got to work out where you put your emphasis.
It’s not completely impossible to take more than one action. But you have very limited time, energy and focus. You want to address the problem that has the most significant impacts.
How do you work out which problems are eggs and which are chickens?
By now, most people know that there’s a good answer to the real-world question of which came first. An egg would have been laid by a chicken-like bird that a chicken hatched from. It is not an irresolvable paradox (at least not when you know about evolution).
You’ve got a tough analysis problem. But you don’t have time to work through a two-month study on it, either. So, how do you work out what’s an “egg” – something that solutions will hatch from?
As you get in and untangle skills and non-skills factors you’ll find a range of possibilities, way more than the four we found for the needs assessment example.
As you do that, many of the people you’re speaking to will spontaneously tell you which they think are the source of the difficulties. Other times, you may have to ask, but you can still get their ideas about where the root causes are.
Those are subjective, messy ideas. They may not be right.
Your view is essential too.
You’re not just there to capture others’ ideas and then act on them. You filter, weigh and evaluate what others think. Some of their ideas might be crazy. Some might be wishful thinking of a kind you’ve seen many times before. It’s your job to weigh them up and see which of those strike you as the most correct.
The people you’re speaking to only have part of the picture.
As you talk to a few different people about the problem, you may find that some have information on a problem that they don’t realise is the underlying cause of someone else’s issue. And that other person doesn’t know where that issue is coming from.
So you weave the threads together to reveal something that others couldn’t see. When you do that, you can get a sense of what is causing different problems.
When you’re prioritizing what you do, try the simplest approaches first.
These are generally cheaper and faster solutions than building skills. If the managers aren’t telling their assessment teams to make sure they have a range of skills, then get them to start doing that. It will be a lot faster than training the team on the kinds of skills they might need, and developing their persuasiveness so they convince managers to release the people that are needed to join the team.
The hierarchy of “simplicity” (which is not the same as ease) was suggested by TE Gilbert in 1978 (and summarized here).
You are responsible for what happens – including the positive results.
Especially by the time you’ve done the analysis, you’re as much of an expert as anyone (well, maybe not anyone, but anyone who is going to be available to help fix things).
You have to make your best estimate and accept responsibility for the course of action taken. At times, it won’t be the right approach. Another tack will turn out to have been the best choice. But you need to make a decision and try to move things along. If it isn’t working you can re-evaluate.
You’re providing your expertise about the situation. It is not about infallibility, whether you work in capacity building or direct management. It is about a reasonable best estimate. That’s why starting with relatively low-cost, low-effort options is a good starting point, as less is lost if it doesn’t make the change you were hoping for.
Take-aways
Go in looking for “eggs” – root causes
You’re not just looking for causes, you’re looking for root causes.
If you just look for skills issues, you will probably find them
Performance problems are complex and there’s often a skills component. But if you stop when you find one, or worse, think that finding skills problems is your only job, there’s a big chance you miss a root cause, and don’t solve the problem.
Start simple
Rule out the simplest possible causes first. Once you’ve done that, you can feel a lot happier about trying more complicated fixes.
Ask why (but don’t parrot the response)
Many people will be able to tell you what the root cause is, if you ask them. But many of them, will be wrong. Your skill is in working out who’s right, based on the other evidence.
Put the puzzle together
You’re getting a wealth of information from many different sources. You have an overall view that probably no-one else does. When you combine what you’re learning from different sources, root causes may jump out at you. That might look like a consensus from the people you speak to about what the problems are. Or it might be that you can now sketch out a path from one problem to another that wasn’t visible before.
Stop
You have to stop looking some time. Make your best judgement and try something.
