Better Decision-Making: Avoiding the Conclusion Trap

A Practical Webinar on Framing Problems and Making Better Choices

Leaders and teams make decisions every day — yet many organizations repeatedly invest time, money, and effort into solutions that don’t actually address the real problem.

In this on-demand webinar hosted by KaiNexus, Dan Markovitz, founder of Markovitz Consulting and author of The Conclusion Trap, leads an interactive, workshop-style session focused on improving how leaders think about problems before jumping to solutions.

Rather than delivering a traditional presentation, this session walks participants through real examples, live exercises, and practical frameworks to help slow down thinking, avoid common decision-making traps, and improve problem framing.

If you’ve ever seen organizations rush to reorganize, buy new software, or launch initiatives that fail to fix the underlying issue — this webinar is for you.

View all previous KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinars

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn:

• Why leaders and organizations instinctively jump to conclusions — and why that’s costly

• The difference between symptoms, causes, and true problems

• How poor problem framing leads to ineffective or wasteful solutions

• Why “solution statements” masquerading as problems limit better thinking

• How to apply Lean and A3 thinking to decision-making, not just process improvement

• Practical ways to slow down thinking without slowing down execution

Key Insights

Better decisions start with better thinking — not faster answers.

In this session, Dan Markovitz shows how organizations fall into predictable traps when faced with uncertainty, pressure, or incomplete information. You’ll learn why common responses like “we need better technology,” “we need more people,” or “we need to reorganize” are often conclusions, not problems.

Key insights include:

• Why framing matters more than analysis when solving complex problems

• How different frames lead teams toward radically different solutions

• Why going to the gemba and understanding facts — not just data — changes decisions

• How Lean problem-solving principles can be applied to leadership, strategy, and management decisions

This webinar emphasizes learning over quick fixes and helps leaders build the discipline to think more clearly under pressure.

Who This Webinar Is For

This webinar is ideal for:

• Executives and senior leaders responsible for strategy and investment decisions

• Continuous improvement and operational excellence leaders

• Lean practitioners and A3 coaches

• Managers who want teams to stop firefighting and start solving real problems

• Organizations frustrated by repeated initiatives that don’t deliver lasting results

Whether you work in healthcare, manufacturing, services, or knowledge work, the concepts in this session apply to any environment where decisions matter.

The Presenter:

Dan Markovitz
Founder & President of Markovitz Consulting

Dan Markovitz helps organizations improve execution by invigorating their lean efforts. He has worked with clients throughout the US and Europe. Past clients have included Microsoft, WL Gore, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, CamelBak, Clif Bar, Goodyear Tire, and dozens of smaller companies.

He is a faculty member at the Lean Enterprise Institute and teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, the Stanford Continuing Studies Program, and the Ohio State University’s Fisher School of Business.

Dan is a dynamic speaker who has keynoted at conferences around the world and spoken at numerous Fortune 500 companies. He’s also an author of two books—A Factory of One and Building the Fit Organization—both of which were honored with Shingo Research Awards. The Conclusion Trap just came out in April. Markovitz lived in Japan for four years and is fluent in Japanese. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.