Change and Challenge 181Our formal schooling does not help us come to terms
with this. From our first days at school we are asked for
‘right’ answers and the deeper lesson we take to heart is that
every problem has a right answer, somewhere, somehow, if
only we could find it. Our schooling feeds us with bounded,
structured problems, then releases us into the messy world
of unbounded, unstructured problems.
Leaders know a frantic hunt for ‘the best’ is the enemy of
‘the good enough’ and that there are very few problems with
a right or wrong answer. Most of the time there is only a ‘best
available’ answer – and that depends on who and where you
are. Perfection is the enemy of the good. ‘Good enough’
works and in business a company simply has to be as good or
better than the opposition.
Here is a story of two multinational CEOs who went on an
African safari adventure holiday together. They both wanted
a closer view of the wild animals so they sneaked into the
bush, away from the safety of the tour guide. Pretty soon they
were having a close encounter with a large lion. The lion
looked them over and licked its lips, and they had the horri-
ble realization that they were bottom in the immediate food
chain and the safety of the Land Rover was over 100 yards
away. One of the men kicked off his shoes, dropped his cam-
era and backpack and got ready to run.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ hissed his companion. ‘You can’t out-
run a lion!’
‘I don’t have to outrun a lion,’ said the first man. ‘I only
have to outrun you!’
thinking in circles
One widely used way of analysing and dealing with a business
issue is to make a list of the key factors then put them in
order of importance and allocate resources or teams to im-
prove them. This is sometimes called ‘laundry list’ thinking.
Laundry list thinking works well for structured, bounded
problems – clear problems with one right answer. It does not