Knowledge Brokering: is Breakdown a Successful Strategy?

Here's a quote from McKinsey Quarterly, a management journal which is available online:

"The first step is to approach the business problem at a level that encourages effective brokering. If the problem is too high level or complex, few potential solvers will have the experience to address it. By considering a problem’s constituent parts, companies increase both the pool of solvers and the odds of good results -- much in the way that carefully selecting the terms of a search engine query increases its usefulness." McKinsey, Jan 2010

The article is a "conversation starter" about ways to get a range of internal and external help in solving a business problem. People with ideas may be put off by the complexity of the challenge. Break it up, in order to allow manageable parts to be discussed and solved.

Do you need new -- lateral -- thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com. Need solutions? No worries. Now.

Which is all very well -- as long as you know enough about the solution to be able to break up the problem... Let's look at a similar process: searching the web for information on a particular topic:

Someone has told you that "knowledge brokering" -- as described in a McKinsey article -- is an interesting idea. You do a Google search on "knowledge brokering" mckinsey. And get 4,200 hits. All well and good. You knew that you wanted to find out about "knowledge brokering". Further, you had heard that McKinsey had provided an article. So you searched for "knowledge brokering" and "mckinsey".

Unfortunately, the actual problem is about "knowledge brokering". Only "knowledge brokering". By adding "mckinsey" to the search terms -- you have restricted your search.

Try searching for just "knowledge brokering". Google returns 62,800 hits -- more than 14 times the number of hits.

More detail, less flexibility

As you restrict your search -- with more detailed search terms -- you also restrict the number of possible results. Similarly, as you break down your quest for "knowledge brokering", you are restricting the potential scope for solutions.

There may be just one person -- somewhere out there amongst the potential knowledge brokers -- who has a radical solution which will make your fortune -- which is so new that it will catch the competition by surprise. Put up the entire problem and you may just get that very new solution.

The only way to break up a business problem is to assume certain aspects of the solution. As soon as you assume certain parts of the solution -- you are losing the chance to come up with that one, big, new idea which will be an absolute world-beater.

Sure, you will improve your chances of gaining help with the small parts of your pre-determined solution. But you will lose the (admittedly small) chance of gaining a major breakthrough. Yes, the odds are stacked against you. But you can always break down the question after the big solution has failed to materialise.

If you really do not know the answer -- open up to the possibility that there may be a new and untried solution just waiting for the opportunity to be noticed. You may just be the next big winner!

If not... there is always time to try again, to make assumptions about the answer, and to go for the second-best result.

But as a first step: try to be an absolute winner. It may just work.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com