Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities

by Adam Kahane

Unfortunately, the authoritarian approach, with its severe limitations, is the foundation of practically all private and public sector strategic planning. Strategists direct, and others follow. Kees van der Heijden, my former boss at Shell, noted that most of the literature on strategic planning falls into “the rationalist school,” which codifies thought and action separately. The tacit underlying assumption is that there is one best solution, and the job of the strategist is to get as close to this as possible, within the limited resources available. The strategist thinks on behalf of the entire organization, and works out an optimal strategy as a process of searching for maximum utility among a number of options. Having decided the optimal way forward, the question of action (known as the “implementation issue”) is addressed. … The (somewhat unlikely?) assumptions underlying the rationalist school are: predictability, no interference from outside; clear intentions; implementation follows formulation (thought independent of action); full understanding throughout the organization; and reasonable people will do reasonable things.