A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

64 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
problem solver’s solution. I had understood that this was developed by the
military in the 19th century. However, during my investigation, I discovered
that this method was also used and taught at Harvard University.
Later yet, I learned that other professions, such as the law, have used a very
similar approach to analyzing and reaching logical conclusions when confronted
<strong>with</strong> difficult and complex problems.
The left-brain approach involves:
■ defining the problem;
■ deciding on the relevant information bearing on the problem;
■ developing potential alternative solutions to the problem;
■ analyzing these alternatives;
■ developing solutions from this analysis;
■ and finally in making the decision.
Problem Definition
You can’t get “there” until you know where “there” is. That’s not one of
Peter <strong>Drucker</strong>’s injunctions; it’s one of mine. That’s my way of emphasizing
that in order to solve any problem, you’ve got first to understand
exactly what the problem is. That’s the “there” in a problem situation. The
shipbuilding problem was not to be able to build the ships the British way,
it was to build ships. <strong>Drucker</strong> saw Welch’s restructuring problem as having
to do <strong>with</strong> trying to manage a number of businesses that didn’t fit the
strengths of the overall corporation.
You can see here where <strong>Drucker</strong>’s instruction to begin <strong>with</strong> ignorance is
so important. With the shipbuilding problem, the problem previously had
been defined incorrectly. It had been defined as: “How can we build the
ships the British way <strong>with</strong>out the same human and physical resources?”
The fact was, you couldn’t. If Kaiser’s ignorance hadn’t been brought to the
problem so that this problem statement was redefined, Kaiser and other
potential American emergency shipbuilders might still be working on the
problem, or long since decided that it couldn’t be done. Using 1940’s technology
available at the time, the problem just couldn’t have been solved.
Similarly, had a large consulting concern accepted GE’s problem and
defined it as simply the restructuring of GE, they probably would have
embarked on a massive program of analysis of each individual business