Who owns the problem of problem ownership?

[Schepers Hans Hans.Schepers wur.]

Posted by ""Schepers, Hans"" <Hans.Schepers@wur.nl>
reading through
""Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau"", 2003, available
at http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/0 ... abeau.html, that Tim
Scheffmann cites, I come across the sentence:

""managers would rather live with a problem they can't solve than
with a solution they don't fully understand or control.""

I though a minute on why this is so, and think of the
_responsibility_ as the key issue:

The managers are (often) _not responsible_ for the problem they can't solve, and
thus don't 'own' it. Adopting a solution theY don't fully understand or control
is scary, because the _are responsible_ when they decide to adopt a solution,
and have to explain it to other stakeholders. Explaining something you don't
understand is apparently scary!

Luckily, System Dynamics' mission is to help managers come at least partly
to grips with complexity, but before all, to feel at ease communicating about it.

They would then also
1) dare to adopt untested solutions,
2) admit not to understand it all, and
3) be prepared to retract from solutions that they no longer think will solve
the problem.

in short they would learn a lot, and speed up innovation for the organization
they are part of.

The other question I still don't see a answer for, and do not know what SD's
role would be:

who owns the problem of problem ownership?

Posted by ""Schepers, Hans"" <Hans.Schepers@wur.nl>
posting date Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:10:38 +0200