I'm reading "Think Again" by Adam Grant, and one idea keeps showing up in my work: the hardest part of solving problems isn't finding the solution. It's staying open to the possibility that your solution is wrong.
Most of us approach problems like prosecutors. We form a hypothesis, gather evidence, defend our position. The deeper we get, the harder it becomes to pivot when new information suggests we're solving the wrong thing.
This happens to everyone. Vendors, internal teams, consultants, executives. You diagnose the issue, commit to a direction, then new context arrives that changes everything.
The first diagnosis isn't wrong because someone failed. It's incomplete because context is always incomplete at the start.
The organizations that solve problems well aren't the ones that get it right immediately. They're the ones willing to treat solutions as hypotheses, not conclusions, and they reward people for making course corrections early instead of defending the original plan.
That takes humility, but it also takes confidence.
If new information is making you question your approach, that's not failure. The question is whether you're willing to follow where it leads.
