Technidigm-2000's level four connects all the relevant facts of an issue across the applicable interfaces with related topical areas. It is at level four that we "brainstorm" to identify these related topical areas and attempt to understand their interfaces. At level four, we also identify the need for additional facts, often based on the experience of the individuals participating at level four. When an informed leader is confident that the necessary and sufficient facts needed for a good decision are available, the leader can establish an appropriate program or solution system to carry out necessary actions. Where the relevant facts can not all be found, the best available opinions might have to be used, but only in instances where there is no better means of arriving at a solution in a timely and economic manner.
Topical area brainstorming is most effective when several people are involved. Brainstorming is a common tool in total quality management (TQM) environments. Gathering the stakeholders to discuss a problem from their different perspectives can be critical to identifying the full breadth of concerns and sub-issues. However, the approach implies a complete set of the necessary participants, ignoring the very likely possibility that important stakeholders might be missing. It also fails to ensure that the final decisions are made by someone who understands all of the information generated by the team (i.e., a technically competent leader). Nevertheless, there are some advantages achieved under TQM, such as improving group ownership of the problem.
While teams of people working on a problem can result in the identification of the related topics, issues, and solutions, the team-analysis result is often an overwhelming body of factual information and uncalibrated professional opinions. Each team member may defend his or her contribution to the joint effort as being vital, resulting in a log jam of possible solutions or requirements. Team members are not likely to be held accountable for failed solutions, so there is little motivation to ensure that the right solutions are selected for implementation and properly balanced relative to each other and relative to the available resources. Such results are useless unless a competent leader (decisionmaker) is available and prepared to deal with them.
We need only look at the Japanese response to the February 1996 rock slide at the Toyohama Tunnel to realize the importance of responsible and empowered leadership. The Japanese culture depends on group thinking and reaching a consensus before taking action. Obviously, this approach has its shortfalls when a bus full of people is being crushed by a 27,000 ton rock. No one at the scene was in charge of making decisions. Someone has to be in a position to decide exactly what action to take and when. This requires knowlege, experience, and leadership.
In contrast to the Japanese decisionmaking approach, the U. S. emergency response procedures require an on-scene commander. In most time-critical situations, decisive and timely leadership is needed, but we must allow for the possibility that some leadership decisions may be wrong. We find the best leader available (usually defined in terms of experience and education) and give that leader the authority to act. The more urgent the decision, the more likely it will be wrong; however, failure to make a timely decision totally precludes the possibility of it being the right decision. Thus, while Technidigm-2000 solution systems require discounting unsubstantiated opinions and the development of an adequate set of applicable facts in various topical areas, it is level four leadership that determines when enough is enough.
Unfortunately, we often fail to recognize the value of experienced leadership and timely decisionmaking in less time-critical circumstances. Also, we tend to confuse political or managerial experience with technical knowledge and experience. One can not simply manage a disaster response team, ignoring what is going on in technical terms. Nor can we" take a vote" and expect to get other than mediocre results when technology is involved.
Leaders make decisions and take responsibility for them. In our current social paradigms, leadership is discouraged largely because we have come to believe that anyone who makes a decision that results in a mistake is somehow imperfect and undeserving of a leadership position. Current paradigms favor those who are unwilling to make decisions, resulting in inaction or untimely action, the consequences of which are often far more calamitous than any mistakes made a responsible leader. Leaders are held responsible for the consequences of their leadership, while nonleaders are not held responsible for their nonleadership. Technidigm-2000 encourages and protects leaders by optimizing their ability to succeed and freeing them from the second guessing of critics and nonleaders.
If I need a leader who understands our technical world and can deal with it in an effective manner, I have to develop that person in the real world. I have to somehow make them circumspect enough to understand the impacts of their decisions on a broad range of activities and programs, not all of which fall within the boundaries of a profit-and-loss report. They must learn how to get to the heart of a complex set of problems. To be consistently effective, they have to have personal integrity and a suitable set of basic principles. If they have a broad set of good principles, they can develop a common sense framework that is applicable in many situations. Technical common sense must be developed -- it is not an attribute that is inherited or that evolves automatically from age.
Even with enlightened leadership, the generation of a comprehensive report at level four regarding a problem does not resolve that problem -- it simply enables a solution system to be defined and created. Solution systems are the result of decisions, and decisions come from leaders. Crucial to a leader's ability to make a decision is the applicable technical knowledge and experience, which may involve several related topical areas or disciplines.
A level four leader is more often broadly experienced technically and is not necessarily limited in experience to management positions. In this technical age, it is rare that pure management skills and experience are sufficient to enable proper decisionmaking, so a need for technical expertise is not a new concept. Technidigm-2000 levels are useful in focusing on the need for level four leadership while concurrently putting levels one, two, and three into a better perspective.
But Technidigm-2000 consists of more than four fundamental concepts (being on-the-level, having principles, keeping things in context, and the proper use of time) and four levels (opinions, facts, research, and solutions). It includes a complementary concept of systems, as described in the materials that follow -- four more pieces of the puzzle. Together, the proper application of these twelve Technidigm-2000 parts allows even nontechnical managers to make the right initial solution system decisions in a reasonable and timely manner. As will be described in more detail below, this is because solution systems include feedback and control systems that correct mistakes before they become major problems.
If we have to rely on purely administrative managers to make level four operational and feedback technical decisions, we can get into trouble. Similarly, if we have to rely entirely on professional politicians for governmental decisions that involve technical areas, we are likely to get into trouble. When managers and politicians are free to override technical common sense with mandates and political maneuvering, the value of having defined, assessed, and balanced technical issues is lost.
Within limits, Technidigm-2000 constrains even nontechnical managers and politicians in positions of authority to be on-the-level and to provide some measure of technical leadership. It is this unique characteristic of Technidigm-2000 that enables it to be applied immediately and broadly, regardless of the quality of an organization's technical leadership. Under Technidigm-2000, leadership and technical quality continually improve.
In the absence of informed leadership, systematic solutions are circumvented by path-of-least-resistance political maneuverings, including compromises and similar face-saving mechanisms. There are countless examples of well-intended organizational mismanagement and political collusion, such as the 1986 Challenger spcae shuttle and Chernobyl accidents to our overly politicized welfare system. Such problems result when we presume that we are functioning with informed leadership at level four, while actually functioning with a leadership void and unsubstantiated opinions at level one.
For many of the significant problems that affect mankind, level four requires the type of knowledge that we normally associate with a doctoral or professional degree. It might also include the level of knowledge held by an experienced college graduate. In addition to technical knowledge, level four requires a significant level of experience for those participating at this level. Complex problems seldom can be addressed effectively unless the majority of the participants have a higher, technical education and appropriate, diverse experience. Each interfacing topic must be sufficiently addressed) by participants at level four.
Level four knowledge and experience must be broad and address the applicable interfaces with other systems and disciplines. Level four includes all of the ingredients needed to make a good decision. If we are concerned about airplanes flying too close to each other, we would have to determine the risk involved and how that risk compares with risks found in parallel situations, such as in railroad and automobile transportation. If we are concerned about the safety of nuclear power plants, we should ensure that they are being inspected and operated in a manner consistent with the potential hazards. Most people are impressed by the level of effort involved with nuclear plant safety assessments. The application of high levels of effort and a great deal of experience and integrity is usually effective in addressing the potential hazards of nuclear plants.
The level 4 solution to problems goes beyond technical details and includes the practical economic and societal factors as well. Is all of this effort worth the investment? Can and should society turn to nuclear energy sources when all the fossil fuels are gone? Such an application of diverse factors to the proposed corrective actions for issues and problems found at an individual nuclear power plant is simply not appropriate. If we limit the scope of the problem, we can come up with a limited solution. To the extent that we ignore or avoid the other factors, we invite criticism from those people who are focused on those other factors, and we undermine our own credibility.
Thus, it can be argued that we can come up with level 4 solutions to many problems, but we might not have stated and solved the more comprehensive problems or issues that are important to the topic. We may have limited our context, we might not have identified all of the key principles involved, and we might not have considered how things might change over time.
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