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Concrete Problem: Because the Board does not have a clear
picture of the responsibilities of the Development Organization,
its expectations for the Director are unrealistic and ambiguous.

Once the general problem has been clearly defined and that definition is
mutually agreed upon, the next step often is to break that problem into
smaller parts. Typically, the general problem is too ambitious to tackle as
one entity. Therefore, it is helpful to break it down into smaller and
smaller sub-problems until you reach a size that you can handle.

The trick is to discover a good way of dissecting a problem so that the parts
of it are relatively independent of one another. Otherwise, the solution to
one part may interfere with the solution to another. For example, the
general problem just stated about the Board and the Director would be an
ambitious undertaking if left as stated. However, it could be broken into

sub-parts such as:

• The responsibilities of the organization.

• The role of the Director in carrying them out.

• The understanding of these responsibilities and the Director’s role
by the members of the Board.

• The expectations of the Board

• The role of the Board in the organization.

• The communication between the Director and the Board.

Each of these parts is specific enough to facilitate a more meaningful
analysis of what is causing the problem and what could alleviate these
causes.

As the problem is being clearly defined, we need to think about how we

deal with problems as well as thinking about the problems themselves. It

David Kolzow 194