In this episode of People Solve Problems, Jamie Flinchbaugh steps up to the microphone without a guest to talk about a pattern he keeps seeing in organizations: leaders trying to solve big problems by pulling big levers. Whether the problem shows up first and the lever follows, or the lever is pulled in hopes of solving something, Jamie states the result is usually the same. The connection between cause and effect gets lost.
Jamie starts with a distinction that frames the whole episode. Most big problems are not really single problems at all. A budget problem, he explains, is actually a thousand small budget problems: overspending here, under-earning there, all adding up to something that looks like one giant issue. That aggregate is a theme, not a problem, and themes cannot be solved with one sweeping move. Real progress comes from understanding the details underneath.
The first big lever Jamie examines is AI, a topic he recently explored in his blog article titled “AI Fragility: Why I’m Not Pro-AI or Anti-AI, but Pro-Thoughtfulness.” He uses AI regularly and never presents its work as his own, but he sees organizations rushing into adoption without a clear problem statement. When he asks what problem an AI strategy is meant to solve, the honest answer is often fear of missing out. He points to Starbucks pulling out an inventory control AI after nine months of building, deploying, and training as an example of what happens when the lever comes before the problem. His counsel is reassuring: it is very hard to be truly left behind, the tools keep improving, and there is plenty of time to catch up. What matters is being specific about what each deployment is meant to accomplish and whether you can evaluate the result.
The second lever is organizational design. Jamie offers two truths that apply every time. First, an org change is never the only way to solve a problem; process design, culture and behaviors, or new capabilities can usually address the same issue, and often better. Second, every org design creates new problems. He calls it the shell game: waste gets moved around rather than removed. Solid lines on an org chart do not equal control, and leadership and culture still have to do the real work after the boxes move.
The third lever is the return-to-office policy. Jamie describes it as a generic solution to a generically defined problem, usually labeled culture. Bringing people back may make culture easier to observe, but it does not fix it. When employees commute in only to sit through a full day of video meetings, the experience undermines the policy. He points to the book “The Year Without Pants” as an example of a fully remote company that was deliberate about how people spent time together in person.
Jamie closes with three questions worth asking before any big lever gets pulled:
What problem are you fundamentally trying to solve?
Are there other pathways to that result?
What new problems will this solution create?
The details, he reminds us, are where the work is done and where the results are found.
Read Jamie’s AI Fragility article at https://www.jflinch.com/ai-fragility-why-im-not-pro-ai-or-anti-ai-but-pro-thoughtfulness/ and learn more about his work at https://www.jflinch.com.