Answer Rushing, Answer Churning
Much of the "time" pressures in business that perpetuate sub par problem-solving and decision-making are not due to the shortage of time but to mismanagement.
Robust problem solving and decision making can be accomplished "quickly" given the problems that need solving and the resulting decisions are handled seriously with appropriate tools and relevant knowledge. This is not a contradiction to intellectual incubation, it is a clarification on how we should use the excruciating finite periods afforded to most of the business world for problem solving and decision-making deliberately. Basically problem-solving and decision making are robust given they are exercised in an environment of positive headspace and an enabling framework.
Intellectual digestion and incubation is more about quality of time than quantity. Time will always be short if it only about answer rushing* (a term I coined). If a framework is provided that promotes positive headspace, relevant knowledge and establishes intellectual incubation then even a nanosecond could be plenty of time to undertake robust problem solving and decision-making. If the framework is one based on answer rushing then problem solving and decision-making could take days, months or years, actually quality problem solving and decision-making are not likely to occur under this condition, just answer churning** (another term I coined). What we are looking for is problem solving and decision-making that have substance and staying power.
Many business cultures today value informational and thought fads that promote the faster or the quicker, not the robust or quality. For many business managers (I did not use the words "business leader" on purpose) the distracting and diverting dance of answer rushing and answer churning allows little to no room for decisions of consequence. The rushing and churning of today has no value tomorrow because tomorrow's time will be occupied by tomorrow's rushing and churning. Why spend time (and calories) on difficult decisions of consequence, when the market will not recognize or value them?
This may be a reason many people are unhappy with their jobs / careers. Happiness is not derived from emptiness or meaninglessness. On that thought, it may be that most business cultures operating today lack an important part of culture, cognitive structures. Well, that statement is a tad radical; they actually have cognitive structures, just not healthy ones. The way I am interpreting it now is that modern business culture concentrates mostly on the construction of rules and interactions but is deficient in managing cognitive structures. Problem-solving leadership could be a positive cognitive structure that may not only help businesses in terms of performance and profitably but bring life to groups and assemblies. (Out on a limb … but that is the place to be, especially to determine the robustness of new ideas)
Problem-solving leadership is a mechanism / framework in which quality problem solving and decisions (of consequence) can be made in a "reasonable" amount of time.
*Answer Rushing: any situation in which speed of delivery is more valuable than the content being delivered; providing information and / or data to a decision problem hastily, with little regard to the quality of the information and / or data or its relation to the actual problem solving requirements and future paths forward
**Answer Churning: the continual output of irrelevant information and / or data due to the practice of answer rushing; providing solutions, remedies or ripostes without understanding of the original query
Originally published January 20, 2008