The Wicked Problem Misdiagnosis

It’s interesting that while we’re busy working on wicked problems, some people have none.

Wicked problems are complex. They have more moving parts than anyone can know. That’s why it takes many of us to see more of these parts.

For people who are especially uncertainty intolerant, problems we call wicked are, for them, simple. They are singular symptoms of singular causes requiring singular solutions.

They diagnose wicked problems simply as deficiencies: the lack of proper resources, power, influence, permissions, talents, data, or expertise. The solutions invariably involve throwing money at the deficiencies.

This is a misdiagnosis because we are not limited by our deficiencies. We are limited by our assumptions.

Correct diagnosis is the first step in breaking from our limitations in wicked problems. Every instance of making progress toward wicked solutions is an instance of liberating ourselves from our conscious and unconscious limiting assumptions.

Questions liberate us from our limiting assumptions. Only questions have the power to surface unconscious assumptions and inspire the kinds of discovery that take us beyond our assumptions into the possibilities of new realities.

When groups are working on wicked problems from assumptions, they are typically not conscious of their misdiagnosis of the problems. They genuinely assume they are limited by their deficiencies rather than by their assumptions. They were perhaps raised by trusted adults whose conversations around wicked problems focused entirely on deficiencies.

These are the conversations about what’s wrong — which is what we’re lacking — and who’s to blame. What they never learned was that these conversations have no power to produce new realities. That’s why we see wicked problems persist across generations and geographies.

This persistence has nothing to do with deficiencies. They have everything to do with misdiagnosis. And when we make progress on wicked problems, it’s always one question at a time.