Since I finished Dan Heath’s thoughtful book Upstream a few weeks ago, I’ve been more or less continuously meditating on his premise of “upstream” problem-solving.
Heath suggests that everyone spends too much time solving problems once they have become problems rather than solving problems before they happen.
It would be wonderful, of course, if we could nip every little problem in the bud before it flowers, but that’s not realistic. One thing I love that Heath does is outline three of the reasons why we struggle to “head upstream.”
Problem Blindness
We can sum up problem blindness in a phrase: That’s just how it is. Heath cites a quote from healthcare expert Paul Batalden several times: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Problem blindness is the failure to recognize that results (or problems) are not inevitable: they emerge from a set of circumstances.
How do you escape problem blindness? Heath writes:
The escape from problem blindness begins with the shock of awareness that you’ve come to treat the abnormal as normal. […] The seed of improvement is dissatisfaction. (38)
A Lack of Ownership
The next barrier to upstream thinking is a lack of ownership. Because no one person or group is responsible, this barrier challenges us when considering big systemic problems like climate change and car safety. (These are two examples that Heath explores in the book.)
There’s often a sense of personal choice involved, too. As Heath explains it: “I choose to fix this problem, not because it’s demanded of me, but because I can, and because it’s worth fixing.” (55)
Tunneling
Heath refers to the research of psephologists Eldar Shafir and Sendhil Mullainathan for the concept of “tunneling.”
When people are juggling a lot of problems, they give up trying to solve them all. They adopt tunnel vision. There’s no long-term planning; there’s no strategic prioritization of issues. […] [Tunneling] confines us to short-term, reactive thinking. (59)
Tunneling is the result of scarcity—not enough time, usually, but also of mental energy—to apply to solving the problems that dog us throughout the day. The solution Heath proposes to tunneling is to create a sense of urgency for the problems that we face. Without that urgency, problems stay firmly in the “important, not urgent” quadrant of our collective Eisenhower matrix.
What next?
Over the past few weeks, it’s been an enlightening exercise to think through these three barriers, and consider whether any or all of them are at play as I struggle with something.
Taylor Coe 