Ryan McCormack: Director of Operational Readiness at Wawanesa Mutual on Problem Solving

Ryan McCormack, Director of Operational Readiness and Optimization at The Wawanesa Mutual Company, joined Jamie Flinchbaugh on the People Solve Problems podcast to discuss his approach to problem-solving in organizations. Ryan has spent over two decades seeking to understand and apply principles that enrich the working lives of people in large organizations, with experience spanning manufacturing, healthcare, management consulting, and insurance.

Ryan explained that his role in problem solving shifts depending on circumstances, but primarily involves consulting and facilitation. He leads a team of problem solvers and determines how hands-on or hands-off to be based on the capability of people who own the problem and the complexity of the issue. Ryan learned to start by asking questions to understand these factors before deciding whether to take ownership or develop others' skills.

When evaluating his team's capacity to solve problems, Ryan focuses on finding people who have the will and joy for problem-solving—qualities he believes are difficult to teach. His team development strategy centers on a mix of technical problem-solving skills, people skills, and consulting abilities. Rather than keeping people on his team permanently, Ryan prefers to rotate members in and out, giving them skills they can take back to the organization. He measures his career success not by projects completed but by seeing people he's developed go on to leadership roles.

For effective collaboration, Ryan emphasized the importance of having a shared problem that everyone is desperate to solve. Without genuine alignment, collaboration becomes artificial. He shared a pragmatic insight that includes actively resistant people on problem-solving teams who have "worked 0% of the time" in his experience. He also highlighted the crucial role of sponsorship, noting that while most leaders believe they're great sponsors, few actually are, and some can't resist taking over the problem.

When addressing root cause analysis in knowledge work, he pointed out unique challenges. Unlike manufacturing environments, knowledge work involves "decision factories" where the quality of decisions is rarely measured. Traditional techniques like asking why five times are less effective in these settings. Ryan's approach starts with understanding the decision-making process and establishing what quality looks like. He noted that in complex organizations, almost no one actually understands how decisions are made, making it difficult to assess root causes without first agreeing on what constitutes quality.

Ryan lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his wife and daughter. Learn more about Ryan's work at https://www.wawanesa.com/ and https://ryanmccormack.substack.com/, or connect with him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rjmccormack.