Early in my career, I was sent on a problem-solving course offered by Kepner-Tregoe. Best I can tell, Kepner-Tregoe has been around for near ever, and deservedly so. Through consulting and training, it helps clients implement strategies by improving their problem-solving, decision-making, project execution and issue-resolution skills and processes.

My take-aways from the two-day course included a good understanding of root causes and a terrific mug that graced my desk for the next thirty odd years. Over the three decades, I sipped at least 20,000 cups of coffee from my KT mug, protected it zealously from grasping hands, and washed it at least… oh… a dozen times.

The KT approach to problem-solving involves five logical steps that sound just like the Scientific Method you learned in high school; despite this – or because of this – it has been incorporated into Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and ITIL (the Information Technology Infrastructure Library). It is, in my opinion, both too simplistic and too complex a methodology. So, despite the whole build-up, the truth is I seldom, in fact, used KT for my own problem-solving. I’ve always found that nothing is that simple and, when you get down to it, seldom is any problem so complex.

So, what was my approach to solving seemingly intractable problems?

Step 1:

When faced with the most confounding problems, I have learned that you’ve got to go deep – yes, to the root – to find the cause. In that, KT and I are aligned. The first step - before you start digging - is to clear away all of the rubble. You’ve got to be honest with yourself and with your colleagues. You’ve got to put aside not only paradigms and prejudices, but also personal pets (people, products and projects). Otherwise, you will reject the obvious. Believe me, when you look back on a tough problem that has been solved, the cause will inevitably, in retrospect, have turned out to be obvious. (Note: In retrospect, everything is inevitable.)

Step 2:

For this, I refer to Murphy’s Law. Actually, two laws from Murphy’s Law, Book Three. Here they are:

Hoare’s Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

The Schainker Converse to Hoare’s Law of Large Problems: Inside every small problem is a larger problem struggling to get out.

To illustrate these seemingly paradoxical laws, I will, with apologies, use General Motors. Certainly enough ink has been and will continue to be spilled on this colossal corporate quagmire and commentary has and will continue to come from many closer to the scene than I. But I am a ‘car guy’ and can hardly help myself.

GM presents a very large problem indeed. The problem (if it makes sense to consider it a single problem) seems to be insurmountable. But, if you dig a little, you would find that the crux of GM’s problem has been, fundamentally and for some time, poor design. This is a very specific issue buried under an avalanche of crises. (Hoare’s Law) The poor design reflects a misunderstanding of the market caused by management arrogance as much as anything else. Management arrogance is a very large problem that is easily glossed over because arrogance, by its nature, is amorphous, subtle and self-propagating. The problem of design in this case (and, frankly, in many others) is really a symptom of the disease of arrogance. (Schainker Converse)

It all started back in the Alfred Sloan era. Sloan led GM from 1923 to 1946. He was a management and marketing genius. Credit Sloan for inventing brand families, annual model changes, planned obsolescence, and the market for used cars.

Sloan gave each car division its own price and style categories. Decades later, demographics changed, as did market dynamics. But the old divisions remained, along with too many old ideas. As Buick’s prime customer aged, however, so did the brand message. And so did the car’s technology. Pontiac’s demographic didn’t age; it simply disappeared. Badge engineering not only removed Saab from its demographic, but made it impossible to figure out what that demographic was. Also impossible to figure out was Saturn’s value proposition, which changed as the Division tried to go mainstream. Meanwhile, in a market becoming increasingly compact, GM could never figure out how to make a small car. Or, more precisely, couldn’t really see the point of putting a lot of value into such a small margin vehicle. Think Xerox and Canon.

The fact is that better design would go a long way to saving GM. The Enclave SUV saved Buick from extinction and the new La Crosse (Allure in Canada) will safeguard its survival. The CTS brought Cadillac back from the brink, but the STS and DTS are so long in the tooth that even the ancients won’t bite. Chevrolet has a little bit of everything, though not enough of anything really special. Malibu, like all the GM cars built on the Epsilon platform, is pretty good. The Camaro is competitive, though no major threat to Mustang in the pony car wars. The Volt, however, could be a game changer.

Bringing Bob Lutz out of retirement was a terrific move – even if Lutz is a Neanderthal. It was a great move because Lutz is very good at what he does. He saw that the various divisions had a lot of similarity but little synergy. He fixed the product development process. His appointment also showed that senior management recognized a very specific issue midst the clutter and was willing to sacrifice the comfort and challenge the slow pace that was the status quo.

Which brings us to Step 3.

Step 3:

Fix the problem fast and, if possible, fix it once and for all.

Epilogue: On April 1, 2009, Lutz stepped down on from his position as Vice-Chairman of Global Product Development and will retire from GM at the end of 2009. Lutz said that one reason for his decision was the regulatory climate in Washington that would force him to design what the feds want rather than what customers want.

Postscript: Lutz is back, this time in a marketing role. This makes no sense. Lutz is a design guy. His way of being and his way of talking make him far from an ideal marketing guy. Oh well.

Note: The 1960 Corvette pictured above is a classic example of good design.

Andy Eklund is founder and Managing Director of Aqus, an Australian-based consulting organization that facilitates creative thinking, be it for strategic planning or corporate communications. He has worked with over 500 clients around the world. And he has seen, all too often, sticks poked in the wheels of creativity, stopping even the best ideas in mid-spin.

Let’s face it, the market for new ideas is as bearish as that for IPOs. New ideas imply risk because they always come with elements of the unknown.

In his blog, Creative Streak, Eklund lists 10 ways ideas are stifled. I will expand on a few of these and then add a couple of my own.

Eklund Stifler #1: Lack of Oxygen

This seems to be a good place to start: are you capturing all the ideas available? Unfortunately, not all ideas get to bubble up to the surface. Shyness, uncertainty, lack of empowerment, fear of ridicule…any number of reasons, real or imagined, will inhibit people from coming forward and presenting an idea. In other words, ideas die in the womb. The fertility of these people’s imagination is wasted.

Corner Office Killer App: “Yes, But…”

When an idea is proffered up, there is an instant when it hovers weightless, somewhere between the rise and the fall. There is a silence, a tension, an apprehension. It is at that moment when the most common squelcher of ideas usually rears its ugly head. Someone says: “yes, but…”

“Yes, but…” is akin to the spider drawing prey into its web, wrapping it up in sticky goop, and then eating it at leisure. “Yes, but” means “nice try, but if you had thought it out first, you would have realized that it can never work.” The ‘but’ can be any number of things that have contributed, lo these many years, to corporate inertia: more important priorities; lack of resources; channel conflict; upcoming negotiations. It may or may not really be that important or relevant, but it is almost always deadly. Like a highway robber, it waylays, it leaves poorer, it spoils the trip.

“Yes, but…” is at its destructive best in the mouths of superiors. Regardless of the intent, a “Yes, but…” from your boss is a kick in the gut. It is now clearer to everyone in the room why he and not you is in the corner office. Everyone is now staring at that chunk of very green spinach stuck between your front teeth. If you are one of those shy, uncertain, unempowered, ridicule-fearing types, you will have nothing further to say.

If an idea is not allowed to breathe, to percolate a little prior to intervention, even a well-meaning attempt to improve it will likely hasten its demise.

Eklund Stifler #2: Budget

Budget is at the top of the list of Buts.

There are two ways the budget bogeyman makes its presence known. One is the zero sum expense game. There is only so much money available for, say, marketing, and while a good idea may move ahead of the pack, it cannot change the bottom line. If there’s no extra money, a new idea means cutting into a long-running campaign or cutting back on a new product launch or cutting out someone else’s pet project.

There is also the issue of capital. Some investments may have a good return and a relatively quick payback. But there is always a threshold at which the organization will balk. In my old company, the magic number was $1 million. Any project that Operations did not want to entertain suddenly required a million dollar investment. Even more magical was when the numbers were so attractive that the million dollars might not have been a deal breaker. Ta duh! Suddenly, without warning, the cost was $2 million. The hissing sound you may have heard was the air seeping out of the idea balloon.

Eklund Stifler #3: Mutilation

The natural successor to Budget. Most good ideas cost money. Not all ideas, to be sure, but most. And not necessarily a lot of money, but money nevertheless. Which means the idea has to be sold. Sometime in the future, I will discuss how to present an idea to Senior Management, but for now consider that the timing must be appropriate, the framing i.e., (rationale) impeccable, the excitement palpable, the packaging tidy (no loose ends), and the support (with the necessary documents and from the right people) fully in place. And, to Eklund’s main point here, you have to choose the right person to present the idea, the right person not necessarily being the one who had the idea in the first place. The key to the successful presentation of an idea is more often the presentation than the idea itself.

Corner Office Killer App: Where’s the Beef?

If you are going to put an idea out there, it should have some meat on it. It is easy to pick at the bones of a skeleton. It is somewhat more risky to take cheap shots at a 600 pound gorilla. If you know you are going to a meeting where ideas on a specific topic are to be bandied about, come prepared. Have numbers to back up you claims. Have answers for any possible objection. Have back-up documents. Have one or more colleagues in place to jump in with credible support. In other words, be prepared to bully your idea’s way into the spotlight and keep it there.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Percy Williams Bridgman, in his book The Intelligent Individual and Society, wrote “There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.” The real stupidity is wasting a good idea or dismissing what is, at least, the seed of a good idea.

Scandals at companies like AIG over bonuses and some inexplicable and indefensible extravagance by executives from a company receiving $85 billion in bailout money brought the subject of executive compensation and perks to the forefront. Again. Princeton University provides a wonderful definition of profligacy that is particularly appropriate here: dissolute indulgence.

Despite the lead-in, this is not really a piece on CEO salaries, separation pay or stupid spending. Enough forests have been laid bare and countless terabytes expended on these subjects. Instead, I would like to write about those pour souls being sucked down these ethics and financial holes, caught in the swirl of all this dirty bathwater.

They are the middle managers and senior managers who execute the corporate will: department heads, directors, even vice-presidents. (Note: Some people would remove VPs from this discussion. In many ways, though, VPs do the same work as those directly below them but with an added layer of corporate responsibilities. They also have more information to keep them awake at night and more meetings to attend.)

There are a few things you have to understand about middle management.

First, they are indeed in the middle. They are the spokes of the corporate wheel. They are the messengers, bringing the news, good and bad, to and from the field. They bear the brunt of both CEO wrath and employee frustration. They have to translate corporate strategy into action, overcome internal weaknesses and face down external threats. They take their work home with them, tethered to their laptops, always on call. And they, more than anyone, pick up the slack when front line workers are let go.

Arguably, for what they do, they are hardly overpaid. Those below them in the corporate hierarchy imagine large salaries, bonuses, perks and privileges that simply do not exist. When it comes to reward, in fact, these managers are far from the middle.

How far? William J. McDonough, Chairman of the Public Company Accounting Board (a creation of the Sorbanes-Oxley Act of 2002) attacked the excesses of large company CEOs in an article on corporate greed.

In 1980, the average large-company chief executive officer made 40 times more than the average employee in his or her firm. By 2000, the multiple of the average CEO’s pay over that of the average worker in the firm had risen, according to some studies, to 400 times. “There is”, said McDonough, “no economic theory, however farfetched, which can justify such an increase. In my view, it is also grotesquely immoral.” (Note: Remember, McDonough is talking about large companies. CEOs of small to medium sized companies have more modest ambitions.)

How much of that largesse trickles down? The answer is, simply, not much. And not far. In most companies, the salary gap starts becoming pronounced at the VP level. On the other hand, says Todd Milbourn, finance professor at the Olin Business School at Washington University, “there’s still a pretty significant gap between, say, a senior vice president and a CEO”. My experience is that, in most companies, especially small and medium sized companies, VPs make something in the order of two times middle managers who, in turn make only percentage points better than the senior members of their respective staffs.

Bonuses tend to be somewhat more skewed. Perks – in my opinion, at least – are generally small potatoes, usually taxable and, anyway, beside the point.

For the increment in pay, the middle manager is also every bit as vulnerable as his employees. More so, when new management appears, either in a changing of the guard or merger / acquisition.

In the recently published The Truth About Middle Managers (Harvard Business Press), Paul Osterman, professor of human resources and management at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, points out that for the last 20 years, white-collar workers and managers have been vulnerable to layoff. “What’s happened in the last six months”, he says, “is just a little more intense than what’s been going on since the mid 1980s.”

The word ‘delayering’ has entered the vocabulary as a good thing. Taking out middle managers, say the human resource gurus (if not the HR managers), streamlines the organization, enhances communications and facilitates rapid decision making. I believe it does exactly the opposite. This pendulum, swinging way to the right, has a very sharp edge indeed.

So life is increasingly difficult and the times particularly rough for middle management. It is nigh impossible to move up these days and, arguably, unwise to do so anyway. They are truly, and incorrectly, between a rock and a very hard place.