How Leaders Use Four Workarounds To Tackle Complex Problems

“Workarounds are effective, versatile, and accessible methods for tackling complex problems,” shares the author of the new book, The Four Workarounds. “They are a creative, flexible, imperfection-loving, problem-solving approach. A method that ignores or even challenges conventions on how, and by whom a problem is meant to be solved.”

In Part 1 of this fascinating and instructional book, author and Oxford University professor, Paulo Savaget, explains what workarounds are and how to come up with them. And, then in Part 2, he digs into how to cultivate a workaround attitude and mindset, including how to reflect on the ways you typically see, judge, and approach obstacles.

“I also show you how you can systematically conceive workarounds to your problems and how your workplace can become more workaround friendly,” adds Savaget.

You’ll read intriguing and revealing stories of how some of the largest and scrappiest companies and organizations used one or more of the four workarounds to accomplish their objectives.

Those four workarounds are:

The Piggyback: Capitalizing on pre-existing but seemingly unrelated systems or relationships. Whether they are mutually beneficial or parasitic, they rely on looking for possibilities that might have gone unnoticed.

The Loophole: Exploiting technicalities and ambiguities in what rules do and don’t say.

The Roundabout: Disrupting self-reinforced behaviors.

The Next Best: Repurposing resources. They can be a temporary patch to allow people to achieve goals more quickly, provide the opportunity to explore options outside the mainstream, or create a new precedent.

Paulo Savaget

Today, the author shares these additional insights with us:

Question: What is a workaround?

Savaget: A workaround is a creative, flexible, imperfection-loving, problem-solving approach. At its core, a workaround is a method that ignores or even challenges conventions on how, and by whom, a problem is meant to be solved.

Let me illustrate with an example I learned from Zambia: many medicines cannot be found in remote regions of Sub-Saharan Africa because of hard-to-solve bottlenecks in healthcare, such as poor infrastructure and logistics systems.

A workaround doesn’t try to tackle these bottlenecks; it circumvents them instead. The organization I studied in Zambia worked around them by piggybacking on Coca-Cola’s distribution channels. They realized Coca-Cola can be found even in the remotest places on earth – so why can’t medicines take a free ride with soda bottles?

Question: When might you need a workaround?

Savaget: Workarounds thrive in complex situations – when stakes are high, resources are scarce, and there’s no time for the usual drawn-out decision-making processes. They are well suited because they embrace uncertainty and imperfection and address our most urgent needs while exploring more robust alternatives.

Question: What does it mean to be a “scrappy organization?”

Savaget: I call “scrappy” small organizations that are feisty, resourceful, and operate at the fringes of power. They think quickly out of necessity, and despite some apparent clumsiness they often persist and succeed because of their unconventional methods. They don’t get paralyzed by what is lacking in a context; they see a world of possibilities by looking at unexplored places, finding unconventional pairings, and repurposing resources.

Question: Why do you think we should value scrappy organizations?

Savaget: The research behind The Four Workarounds builds on the knowledge and experiences of scrappy organizations – not from big businesses or global powerhouses, but from the little guys with limited resources, often scraping by on the periphery. I get deeply annoyed with the conventional wisdom that large companies are inherently superior, better run, and better equipped than scrappy organizations. This book shows how the business world can learn from the innovative wit and practical ingenuity of these “ugly ducklings.”

Question: What is a workaround mindset?

Savaget: A workaround mindset challenges the conventional wisdom that the best course of action is always to understand the full picture and remove visible obstacles. The three principles are recognizing the limits of your knowledge, adjusting lenses, and thinking like an outsider. These principles help us embrace complexity and find opportunities for workarounds.

Question: How can organizations become more workaround friendly?

Savaget: My book shows how organizations of all sizes can become more workaround friendly. That involves recommendations for strategy, culture, leadership, and teamwork. It also offers a sort of playbook for individuals who want to come up with workarounds for the personal problems they face.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

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