Upstream - How to Solve Problems Before They Happen
Dan Heath is a bestselling author, alongside his brother Chip, of books on topics ranging from behaviour change, via decision-making, through to successful communication of strategy. At Sport and Beyond we love their books as they are accessible, practical, research driven and contain brilliant stories.
In this book Dan branches out from joint writing with his brother to go solo.
The book examines how to solve problems upstream. Whilst most of us would agree that ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure’ our actions don’t always match those words.
The book starts with the three forces that push us downstream, impeding our ability to prevent problems. Then it looks at the seven fundamental questions that upstream leaders must answer. Finally it considers ‘far upstream thinking’ – what to do when you’re facing a problem that has never happened before; particularly relevant of course at this time.
The Three forces that push us downstream
Problem blindness. ‘I don’t see this problem’. ‘This problem is inevitable.’ In order to escape from this, consider: (i) shock of the awareness that you’ve come to consider something as normal that is abnormal; (ii) the search for a community (do other people feel this way?); and (iii) people then voluntarily holding themselves responsible for fixing problems they didn’t create….(because the second force is..)
A lack of ownership. Lack of ownership says ‘it’s not mine to fix’. Simple illustration: you are sitting in a seminar, there is a person in front in the way so you can’t see the screen; rather than getting annoyed at them and cursing them, just move your chair……One potential obstacle here is whether or not you feel you have psychological standing – ie do you feel you have the legitimacy to try and solve this problem?
Tunneling. I can’t deal with that right now, I haven’t got the bandwidth. People who are tunneling can’t engage in systems thinking; they can’t prevent problems. They just react. To avoid: find slack (engineer if need be eg daily cross team meeting like in hospitals); OR create a sense of urgency (co-opt the power of tunnelling for good).
The Seven Questions
How will you unite the right people?
Maintain a big tent and make sure that everyone gets a role. Surround the problem – so include people who can address all the big dimensions.
Compelling and important shared goal. Align their effort towards preventing specific instances of the problem eg not a group to discuss ‘policy issues around domestic violence’ but ‘stop Helen from being killed.’ Or ‘what are we going to do about year 10 student Michael next week?’
Data is often the centrepiece of many upstream efforts. But it’s data for learning not data for inspection. Useful, real time data to measure progress. The team members hold each other accountable, and the data keeps them honest and keeps them pushing.
How will you change the system?
‘Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.’
Good intentions can’t overcome bad systems. The solutions are systemic, not personal.
System change – takes time – often the ones who start the process don’t get to see the fruits.
Where can you find a point of leverage?
Immerse yourself in the problem – ie putting on an age-simulation suit!
But how do you know exactly what you are looking for – such as a promising fulcrum and lever?
Consider the risk and protective factors for the problem you are trying to prevent. Eg for Finland and underage drink and drug abuse: parental inattention (risk factor) and formal sports (protective factor).
Might your leverage be a particular sub-population of people?
Consider costs and benefits and go for biggest bang for buck – but don’t focus on saving money/financial ROI.
How will you get early warning of the problem?
There is no inherent value in early warning signals. Their value hinges on the severity of the problem. ie early warning that my bedside lightbulb is about to die v light in lighthouse.
The value also depends on whether the warning provides sufficient time to respond.
Sometimes you can use historical patterns to inform predictions.
How will you know you are succeeding?
Beware ghost victories:
a rising tide lifts all boats – mistakenly attributing success to your own work;
succeeded on your short term measures but they don’t align with your long term vision;
your short term measures become the mission in a way that really undermines the work eg baseball team, wants to win the league. Decides to aim for more home runs. But pressure to hit home runs leads to several players taking steroids and they get caught.
Short term measures must be appropriate steps towards the long term goal.
You must devote time to pre-gaming them:
the rising tides test;
the mis-alignment test;
the lazy bureaucrat test (if someone wanted to succeed on these measures with the least possible effort, what would they do?);
the defiling the mission test; and
the unintended consequences test……
How will you avoid doing harm?
Spend some time from a vantage point that lets you see the whole system, not just the problem you are sorting.
And realise that, especially in the short term, changes for the good of the whole may sometimes seem to be counter to the interests of a part of the system.
Zoom out and pan from side to side. Are we intervening at the right level of the system? And what are the second order effects of our efforts?
How can you know? Often only by experimenting. Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there and learn (through prompt and reliable feedback).
Questions to help decide whether to stage an upstream intervention:
Has an intervention been tried before that’s similar to the one we are contemplating? (so we can learn from its results and second order effects)
Is our intervention trialable?
Can we create closed feedback loops?
Is it easy to reverse or undo if it turns out we’ve unwittingly done harm?
Who will pay for what does not happen?
Paying for upstream problems boils down to 3 questions:
Where are the costly problems?
Who is in the best position to prevent these problems?
How do you create incentives for them to do so?
Distant and Improbable Threats
The book contains a short chapter looking at this area, building on the advice already given. Key aspects include:
convening the right people to discuss the right issue in advance of a problem (you don’t want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an emergency…);
practice - preparing for a major problem requires practice - but this runs contrary to the tunneling instinct discussed above (our pandemic plans in the UK clearly suffered as a result of this). Organisations are often dealing with constant, short term problems and planning for speculative future ones which are, by definition, not urgent. This makes it hard to convene people, get funds authorised, and convince people to collaborate when there is no immediate need;
through practice, tweak the system, make the small improvements required to respond better.
So when preparing for uncertain or unpredictable problems, convene the right players and align their focus, escape the tunnels and surround the problem, and try to make tweaks to the system that will boost readiness.
3 key lessons
Be impatient for action but patient for outcomes.
Macro starts with micro. You can’t figure out how to solve a problem for many until you’ve worked out how to solve it for one.
Favour scorecards over pills: mindset of continuous improvement. Continuous flow of data to assess if you are failing or succeeding. Don’t obsess about formulating the perfect solution before you begin your work; instead take ownership of the underlying problem, and start slogging forward.
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