Organisations facing poor performance search first near the symptom and near existing solutions, and only widen the search when that fails.
Search is stimulated by a problem, directed at the problem, and biased by simple-minded assumptions about causation: look near the symptom, then near the current alternative. The pattern is efficient when the cause is local and systematically blind when it is not, which is why organisations rediscover the same remedies and miss structural causes for years.
In practice
- A firm losing customers redesigns the checkout, which is near the symptom, and never examines the product.
- A department with a recruitment problem rewrites the advert four times before questioning the salary.