The Diagnosis III

...diagnosis is a judgement about the meaning of facts.

At Starbucks, one executive might diagnose this challenging situation as "a problem in managing expectations."  Another might diagnose it as  "a search for new growth platforms."   A third might diagnose it as "an eroding competitive advantage."  None of these viewpoints is, by itself, an action, but each suggests a range of things that might be done and sets aside other classes of action as less relevant to the challenge.   Importantly, none of these diagnoses can be proven to be correct--each is a judgment about which issue is preeminent.  Hence, diagnosis is a judgement about the meaning of facts.

The challenge facing Starbucks was ill-structured.  By that I mean that no one could be sure how to define the problem, there was no obvious list of good approaches or actions, and the connections between most actions and outcomes were unclear.  Because the challenge was ill-structured, a real-world strategy could not be logically deduced from observed facts, Rather, a diagnosis has to be an educated guess as to what was going on in the situation, especially about what was critically important.

ACTION POINT: The diagnosis for the situation should replace the overwhelming complexity of reality with a simpler story, a story that calls attention to its crucial aspects.  This simplified model of reality allows one to make sense of the situation and engage in further problem solving.