Apr 22, 2024
The adage "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" has often been attributed to Albert Einstein, reflecting a common pitfall in human behaviour and decision-making.
Fun fact: It was never quoted by Albert Einstein, it was quoted by Rita Mae Brown in her book Sudden Death.
This is a trap many of us fall into, especially when under pressure to solve persistent problems. We tend to believe that if we apply the same solution with more rigour or finesse, the outcome will be different. But is this approach effective, or does it lead us down a path of futile repetition?
This is a mistake that we have made several times since we have been working on building Curelink. One where it has been most prominent is when we were trying to solve for slow growth in our care plan enrolments from our partner doctors. In the time between July 2023 and December 2023, our growth was very slow, in terms of the patients that the doctors were enrolling on our care plans as well as the revenue that we were making from selling the care plans.
Initially, we were convinced that the crux of the problem lay with our sales team. We thought that if only we could enhance their skills through rigorous training, the numbers would start to climb. Why? Because whenever I or the founders used to go to meet a doctor we ended up realising that the doctor doesn’t believe in our idea and doesn’t understand what we are trying to do here. And then we used to always start thinking that it is the job of our sales to sell the idea to the doctors and it is they that they are not doing it well.
So we put all my strength behind training them. Not just 1 time but almost every month we used to round up all of our sales team from all the cities for 2 days at the office to train them. Tell them how to do the same thing again and again. Not just that, we even tried to build up everything we could to be able to track the daily work of the team - be location tracking and audio recording, each time hoping for a significant uptick in growth.
However the right growth remained elusive. Despite our repeated efforts to train the sales team and track them better, there was only minimal improvement. It started to give me the feeling of us trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I started to feel that we were getting caught in the cycle of ‘we’ll do it better this time’.
I realised this the earliest in the company and so when one of my founders wanted me to plan to get another training session I asked him 3 hard questions - ‘Is there something that we are going to do differently this time?’ , ‘If yes, where did we lack before that we were not able to do it the last time’, and ‘Do we think this changes would get us 10x results?’
He started to think about the whole thing himself again and then he agreed with me. We decided that we will look beyond the skill issues of our sales team and we will focus on finding problems related to our product and improving the notion about our product in the
It was clear that the issue was not solely with the sales team's skills but perhaps with the overall approach or the product-market fit. Maybe we needed to reconsider how we positioned our care plans to the partner doctors or how we structured them to be more appealing and beneficial for the patients.
I was happy to have realised it then but the question is why did we get too late at this realization? And what can we do in future to avoid it?
Well, there are 2 major reasons why less experienced problem solvers like us get easily caught up in this cycle:
Trap of Familiar Solutions
We, as humans, often default to familiar solutions because they are comfortable or have worked in the past under different circumstances. This is deep rooted in your cognitive behavior and is termed as familiarity bias. This is a trap many of us fall into, especially when under pressure to solve persistent problems.
The Illusion of Control
The belief that "we can do it better this time" without implementing substantial changes is often rooted in the illusion of control, a cognitive bias that leads us to overestimate our ability to influence outcomes. This illusion fuels overconfidence, making us believe that our efforts alone can turn the tide, despite evidence to the contrary. For instance, consider a business that failed to capture market share with a product launch. They might think that simply increasing the marketing budget, without changing the product or strategy, will yield different results. But if the underlying product or its market fit hasn't been addressed, the same challenges will likely reemerge.
Several cognitive biases reinforce this behavior. Confirmation bias, for example, makes us focus on information or results that confirm our preconceived notions while ignoring evidence that contradicts them. This can make us overlook the reality that our previous strategies were ineffective.
Now you must be thinking how to break this cycle and to avoid getting inside this loop?
Well here are the 2 ideas that I use now to make sure that I don’t get looped into this cycle:
Understanding the Root Cause
Work harder to get an analytical understanding of the root cause. Often, we skim the surface of a problem, mistaking symptoms for the root cause. Without digging deeper and understanding the underlying issues, our solutions are just temporary patches rather than permanent fixes. Try to identify all types of problems before jumping to solutions. Use the double diamond approach to design thinking! It works wonderfully.
The Need for Reflective Practice
Reflective practice and learning from past experiences to truly improve and make different decisions is of utmost importance. Thinking ‘We can do better this time’ is not wrong. It is a testament to our optimism and never giving up attitude. But it also risks trapping us in a cycle of repetitive, ineffective solutions. Therefore, this thinking should always start with asking yourself hard questions to reflect upon the past. Questions like
‘Is there something that we are going to do differently this time?’ , ‘If yes, where did we lack before that we were not able to do it the last time’, and ‘Do we think this changes would get us 10x results?’ would make you think critically.
Application of just these two ideas have helped me a lot in transforming my problem solving skills and taking the right decision and I believe they must be a tool for everyone trying to solve a hard problem.
“We’ll do it better this time” can be a powerful mantra if it’s backed by introspection, innovation, and a willingness to change. Breaking the cycle of repetitive failure means not just doing the same thing better, but doing better things. As leaders, as tinkerers and as problem solvers when we devise strategies and solutions, let’s anchor them in the lessons of the past, the realities of the present, and the possibilities of the future.
