When you spend years responding to problems, you can sometimes overlook the fact that you could be preventing them.
Upstream thinking
Downstream actions are reactions to problems. These efforts are fast and tangible.
Upstream actions attempt to prevent those problems from happening in the first place by systematically reducing the harm caused by those problems. These efforts are slower and broader. A sign of upstream work is that it uses systems thinking.
You can offer a homeless person a meal today, but figuring out how to reduce evictions so that people don’t become homeless might take years.
Upstream thinking in leadership
Organisations have a tendency for downstream thinking. To succeed, leaders should change the focus to upstream thinking.
- Identify problems early
- Target leverage points in complex systems
- Find reliable methods to measure success
- Consider new ways of working together
- Embed their successes into systems.
Find new ways of working together:
- Hand the problem to the right people.
- Give them enough notice of that problem.
- Align their efforts toward preventing instances of the problem.
Find reliable ways to measure success
“Rising tides” test What else might explain the short-term success other than our efforts?
Misalignment test. How can we find misalignment as early as possible? What alternative measures could provide potential replacements?
lazy bureaucrat test. What would someone do if they wanted to succeed on the tests with the least amount of effort?
Defiling-the-mission test: If short-term success undermines your long-term mission, what was the cause?
test for unintended consequences. What if we complete our mission but have unintended consequences? What should we pay attention to?
Examples of upstream thinking
Expedia: 58% of customers who booked travel on Expedia placed a call afterwards for a copy of their itinerary. No one was responsible for ensuring that customers didn’t need to call for support. It was identified as an upstream problem. Once changes were in place, the need for customers to call for help decreased to 15%.
Dutch Bicycle Company: VanMoof regularly received complaints that many of its bikes were damaged during shipping. They started printing images of flat-screen televisions on their shipping boxes, thinking couriers would be more careful. It resulted in 70–80% less damage.
Unintended consequences: An Example
Banning plastic bags in San Diego caused serious unintended consequences.
The deadly 2017 hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego is attributed to the lack of plastic bags. Homeless people used the bags to dispose of their own waste. But when the bags became hard to come by, the alternatives were much less sanitary.
Barriers that prevent upstream thinking
Problem blindness. “This problem is inevitable.” You can’t fix a problem you can’t see.
a lack of ownership. “It’s not my problem to fix.” People resist acting on a problem because they may feel it is not their place. When no one owns the problem, it probably won’t get solved.
“I can’t solve the problem right now.” Researchers found that when people lack money, time, or mental bandwidth, the little problems take priority over the big ones. When people juggle many issues, they give up trying to solve them and instead adopt “tunnel vision.”
