# Making Things Worse by Making Things Better By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2022-12-07 Analysts, critics, cynics, and other pessimists tend to make things worse as they attempt to make things better. Organizations are filled with suboptimal operations. There is no shortage of hypocrisy. Every single day one could easily point to a negative aspect of organizational life. Determining when and how to identify and resolve these deficiencies is part of the art of organizational assessment. Being effective as an analyst within organizations requires more than pointing out what is wrong. This is the easiest part. Being an effective organizational analyst requires more than offering a substantiated alternative designed to improve things. This is a harder and more technical step than pointing out a problem. Being effective as an analyst requires that the organization accepts the analyst as a trusted collaborator in improvement. Coming in from the “outside,” pointing out what is wrong, and offering an analytic solution seldom reaches this essential level of acceptance. If one sows discord, acrimony, fear, and despair through one’s organizational analysis one is likely contributing to making things worse by making things better. Organizations don’t need this sort of improvement. What organizations need is informed, honest, discussions around issues of merit. Analysts can help identify and inform these discussions. Doing so effectively requires an understanding of important human considerations which reside outside conventional analytic training and education. #### Related Items [[Analytics]] [[Problem Solving]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Critique]]