Evidence Before Action: Why the Best Problem-Solvers Begin with Data
- Russ Powell
- May 7
- 6 min read
Updated: May 14
When a problem hits your desk—hard and fast—what do you do?
If you're like most startup leaders, your gut tightens, your mind races, and five possible fixes bubble to the surface before you’ve even taken a breath. It feels productive. It feels decisive. It feels like leadership.
It’s also how some of the smartest people in business drive full speed into a wall.
The $5.4 Billion Lesson
In 2013, Target rolled into Canada with big dreams and 124 shiny new stores. Two years later, they packed up every single one—leaving behind confusion, empty shelves, and a $5.4 billion crater.
What went wrong? The data.
Their inventory systems said items were in stock, but the shelves were bare. Digital records and warehouse realities weren’t speaking the same language. When employees raised red flags, leaders kept moving—confident they understood the problem.
Spoiler: they did not.
And they’re not alone. A startup burns $400,000 building features no customer asked for. A product team revamps a dashboard, only to find users needed a different dataset altogether. These are not stories of incompetence. They’re stories of fast, confident action taken without enough evidence.
And that’s the whole point: Good problem-solving always starts with good data.
Before you fix, you find. Before you act, you ask. Skipping this step doesn’t just risk wasted effort—it practically guarantees it.
Sherlock Holmes said it well:
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
Sound familiar?
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” –Sherlock Holmes
Why We Leap Before We Look
Smart problem-solvers fall into this trap for a simple reason: our brains are built for speed, not accuracy.
Daniel Kahneman describes it well in Thinking, Fast and Slow. We favor fast, intuitive answers—even when the stakes are high. Worse, the more experience we have, the more likely we are to skip the evidence step. Chris Holmberg calls this “The Knower Trap”—a form of blindness caused by certainty.
“The biggest barrier to learning something new is believing you already know it.” —Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.
Think of a master chef. They don’t just throw ingredients into a pot and hope. They taste as they go. Even after years of experience, they know: the tools, the timing, the ingredients—something is always different. The best leaders do the same. They don’t assume. They verify.
The Cost of Unchecked Assumptions
And here’s the kicker: this isn’t just an individual problem. It becomes contagious.
Teams start repeating the same explanations until they feel true. “Users don’t care about that feature.” “It’s just a communication issue.” “Engineering’s blocking progress again.” None of it tested. All of it repeated.
"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.” –Daniel Kahneman
Startups—especially fast-moving ones—are prone to groupthink. Breaking that cycle means doing something radical: slowing down, asking better questions, and gathering evidence before rushing to solve.
Think Like a Scientist, Not a Savior
When physicists at CERN recorded particles moving faster than light (a discovery that would break the laws of physics), they didn’t book a TED Talk. They checked their instruments. The problem? A loose fiber optic cable. No revolution. Just a reminder that assumptions—even tiny ones—can derail everything.
That mindset—curious, methodical, humble—is one every startup leader should steal.
In Middle Path parlance, this is known as “sensing”—the first step in the S-Loop. It’s what happens right after the "'Oh, sh*t!' moment," when the smartest leaders pause to gather good data before rushing to fix things.
Adam Grant calls it “thinking like a scientist.” Ted Lasso calls it “being curious, not judgmental.”
Either way, it means this: stop trying to be right. Start trying to find out what’s true.
Questions That Cut Through Fog
So how do you gather meaningful data when time is short? You ask questions that reveal what you don’t know. Here are a few:
Structural Questions (The "It")
What systems or processes might be creating this issue?
When did this start, and what changed around that time?
Are we measuring and rewarding the right things?
Where does information get stuck?
Relational Questions (The "We")
What important conversations are we avoiding?
Which hand-offs regularly break down?
Who needs alignment to make this disappear?
Where is psychological safety missing?
Personal Questions (The "I")
What don’t I know yet?
Whose perspective is missing?
Who has firsthand experience with this?
Who disagrees—and why?
These aren’t “soft” questions. They’re power tools. They surface the truths that keep your team from wasting time, money, and trust.
Five Fast Ways to Gather Better Evidence
Good news: you don’t need a data science degree to do this right. Start here:
Watch users interact with your product—without interrupting (They’ll show you what they can’t explain.)
Ask questions mid-task, not after (Memory lies. Real-time doesn’t.)
Look for dis-confirming evidence (If you’re always right, you’re definitely missing something.)
Triangulate sources (Don’t rely on one lens—cross-check data, voices, and views.)
Write down your assumptions—then test them (You can’t challenge beliefs you haven’t named.)
“The person who asks questions is temporarily ignorant. The person who never asks questions is permanently ignorant.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson
Why Smart Teams Pause
Speed wins in startups. But thoughtful speed wins more.
Think of a Formula 1 pit crew. The fastest teams aren’t frantic. They’re deliberate—executing precise steps based on hundreds of prior runs. They look smooth, even slow. But they’re done in under two seconds.
Same goes for leaders. The fastest route through a problem isn’t headlong. It’s eyes open, data in hand, and then—decisively—go.
A Challenge for You
Next time a problem lands in your lap up, try this:
Before proposing a single fix, gather three pieces of evidence you don’t yet have.
Ask one surprising question.
Talk to one person outside your usual circle.
Look in one place you wouldn’t normally check.
That simple act could save you from your own Target Canada—and surface insights your competitors never saw coming.
That first step—sensing—isn’t just good practice. It’s a leadership muscle.
And it’s exactly where we begin in our foundational problem-solving workshop.
Ready to Level Up Your Team’s Problem-Solving?
The best teams don’t just act fast. They act wisely. They build habits that help them solve the right problems before wasting time on the wrong ones.
If that’s the kind of muscle you want to build, our Leadership and the Middle Path workshop may be exactly where to start.
For Further Reading, Reflection
"The Last Days of Target Canada" (Canadian Business) – Data failures caused $2B retail catastrophe despite warnings. https://www.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-canada/
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" (Kahneman) – How two mental systems drive decisions and judgment errors. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow
"Assumption Mapping: A Practical Guide" (UX Tweak) – Test business assumptions before they become expensive mistakes. https://blog.uxtweak.com/assumption-mapping/
WorkLife: Adam Grant and J.J. Abrams – Think like scientists, not preachers, when solving problems. https://www.ted.com/talks/worklife_with_adam_grant_think_again_jj_abrams_takes_adam_s_job
"Seeing What Others Don't" (Klein) – Finding breakthrough insights through anomalies and contradictions. https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-What-Others-Dont-Insights/dp/1610393821
Note: The "Be curious, not judgmental" quote in Ted Lasso is mistakenly attributed to Walt Whitman in the show. According to Snopes, while this is a valuable sentiment, there's no evidence Whitman ever said or wrote these words.
Better problem-solving. Less friction. Stronger performance.
If you lead—or work with—a team in a growing startup or small business, you know how quickly misalignment and stalled decisions can slow progress. Leadership and the Middle Path is our foundational workshop designed to build the collaborative problem-solving skills your team needs to move faster, work better together, and stay focused on what matters most.
Battle-tested in over 150 startups and Fortune 100 companies, this highly practical course helps teams reduce friction, save time, and perform at their best. Created by world-class OD expert Chris Holmberg, it’s the cornerstone of our leadership development curriculum—and a game-changer for teams ready to level up.
Join us for the next series.
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