Should We Focus on Problems or Solutions? - Part Two

In a previous article, I noted the seemingly contradictory advice given by some prominent change experts regarding where to place focus when influencing others through organizational change. On one hand we had William Bridges, who essentially said, “Sell the problem!” On the other hand, we had Chip & Dan Heath, who said, “Sell the solution!”

How do we resolve this apparent lack of agreement among the experts?

I think the answer lies in a common model called the Change Cycle. The Change Cycle reflects the idea that we experience change in much the same way we experience grief, as set forth by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her groundbreaking book On Death and Dying. Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) track very closely to the stages of the Change Cycle as set forth by Bridges and others. In essence, people who experience change must first go through a process of relinquishing the past before they can start looking ahead to the benefits the change might bring in the future.

When people first enter the Change Cycle, they often try mightily to keep things the way they are, to maintain the status quo. If allowed to, they’ll quickly rush back to the old ways rather than cast their fate to the promises of the (uncertain) future. To move across the starting line, they need a good answer to the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) question. At the early phases, then, “selling the problem” is usually more effective than “selling the solution,” since people are not yet convinced that anything needs a “solution.”

However, as the Heaths point out in their book Switch, once people have been prompted to move across the line, a steady drumbeat of problem-problem-problem will only serve to scare them, demotivate them, and wear them down. This might work fine for changes that require quick, specific, short-term action. Yet most organizational changes are bigger and more complex, requiring (as the Heaths put it) “creativity and flexibility and ingenuity.” To do this, you have to enlist people in the search for ideas and implementation strategies.

In fact, these organizational needs track well with the typical progress of people through the Change Cycle. As they work through the initial process of letting go of the past, they become more open to the possibilities presented by the future. At this point, “selling the solution” becomes a more effective way to inspire and motivate people to commit to the change so that they’ll lend their hearts and minds to sustaining the change over the long haul.

So rather than constituting another “either-or” choice, the question “Do we focus on the problem or on the solution?” can really be seen as a matter of not whether to do one or the other but when to do each.