Kepner and Tregoe suggest four basic patterns of thinking that people unconsciously use and are reflected in four questions that managers should ask every time a decision needs to be made:
- What’s going on? Involves assessing, clarifying, sorting out the details, and imposing order on the problem or opportunity at hand. Separate the complex into manageable components.
- Why did this happen? This thinking pattern relates cause and effect. It prevents us from being at the mercy of our environment. Responses to the question allow us to move forward.
- Which course of action should we take? We need to make choices. For what purpose is the choice being made? Which choice will best fulfill the purpose? Which option is the most productive and requires the least risk?
- What lies ahead? The question responds to acknowledging where the future lies and the future impact of the decisions. Although the future carries less urgency than the present, it cannot be disregarded. Today’s actions cannot become tomorrow’s problems.
You could argue that this is a simplistic approach to a very serious problem. Not so. These four points are not a prescription. As you ask the simple question, What’s going on?, consider the breadth of area that it covers. The thinking is up to you and your colleagues. Industry views this question to uncover the financial considerations related to the impact of competition. The academic community might ask, what’s going on and what will the university be like in the future? Already, universities are granting degrees where the majority of the work can be done at a location chosen by the student; the living room today, the office tomorrow, next Friday on some sunny beach. What are the implications for the universities? Only a few years ago university deans scoffed at such a suggestion. The various government agencies across all constituencies may also ask, What’s going on? Why do we have the excessively escalating costs of healthcare and how do we resolve them? What’s going on? asks everything that needs to be asked.
Question 2, Why did this happen?, requires answers but primarily to take advantage of gaining some level of agreement on how we got to where we are. It may be history but useful history to avoid making the same mistakes. Question 3, What’s the course of action?, focuses on developing solutions with alternatives and selecting the most appropriate within all the constraints. Question 3 must respond to Question 4, What lies ahead?
Thinking is not limited to responding to these four simple questions, but all activities are related to one of these four questions. The questions are simple; the answers to the questions are usually complex.