What's your problem?

One of the most frequent things we have to do in business is to solve problems. Some might say life itself is one continuous problem-solving adventure. My point is that the need to solve problems is inevitable but how good you are at it isn’t.

Unfortunately, too many people get lost in problem-solving and are horribly ineffective at it. 

In today’s business world we need flexible, open and creative minds. If you are stuck in your ways, fear change (or dare I say constant change) and are overly conservative, you will definitely struggle with problem-solving at work since the target is always changing. As someone once told me at business school: ‘Be a dolphin, not a dinosaur’. 

The first thing I would advise you to do is to dedicate a lot of time understanding and analysing the problem. I think it was Einstein who said that if he only had one hour to save the world he would spend a staggering 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes to finding the solution and I think that says a lot about how to approach problem-solving.

In doing so, you should rephrase the problem and challenge underlying assumptions.

For example, when a Toyota executive asked his employees to think of ways ‘to increase your [their] productivity’ he got nowhere but when he rephrased his question to ‘find ways to make your jobs easier’ he was inundated with great ideas and suggestions.

Similarly, when innovating a company’s business model, I frequently ask the top management to intentionally throw out of the window the obvious industry assumptions (home truths) since this always leads to innovation. Low cost airlines did this circa 10 years ago and they revolutionised the airline industry; Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs disrupted several industries by challenging previously held assumptions; and FaceBook definitely ignored a lot of industry assumptions to come up with its constantly evolving product. My point is that problem-solving requires you to have an open mind and this includes how you frame the problem and what assumptions you make (or ignore).

The second step requires you to break the problem down to smaller (bite size) pieces. Every problem is arguably a smaller piece of a greater problem. A tool I find very useful is the “Five Why’s”, which involves asking the question ‘Why’ five times before getting close to the root cause of the problem.

You see, the difficulty in problem-solving is that very often people mistake or confuse the root cause with the symptom(s) of the problem. With the “Five Why’s” you move yourself from the problem to a possible cause to the actual cause.

For example: The problem is that a company finds it hard to recruit new people. First why: Because people haven’t heard of us? Second why: Because we don’t have a strong brand presence? Third why: Because we spend most of our marketing budget on B2B foreign customers and hardly any on local brand building? Fourth why: Because our KPIs are tied to global sales? Fifth why: Because our Sales Department has a lot more clout and influence with the CEO than our HR director? 

The third step to problem-solving is to obtain a 360 degree perspective. Look at the problem from multiple / different perspectives. Look at the problem from your customers’ point of view, from your front-liners’ point of view, from your competitors’ point of view and from the perspective of your top-management. Identify the gaps and think of how these can be bridged. Also focus on understanding the differences and similarities. The idea here is to start coming up with alternative actions. 

The fourth and suggested final step is to literally start removing the obstacles of the problem. For example, if you are finding it difficult to increase sales, think of ways to decrease sales and then simply reverse your answers. Obstacles become solutions. In English, we say turning the problem on its head. 

Obviously, there is a multitude of problem-solving techniques you can use. For example, the ‘Is/Is Not Matrix’, the ‘Six Honest Men’ (What? Why? When? Where? Who? How?), the ‘Six Thinking Hats’, Structured or semi-structured Brain Storming sessions, ‘Leap Frog Analysis’, ‘Force Field Analysis’, ‘Tree Diagrams’ and even Scenario Thinking. I would suggest that you play with different tools and see what works best for you and always get external / independent help. 

So, if your problem at work is problem solving, you now know the basics. Don’t be emotional or instinctive about it but use problem solving techniques and tools to arrive at the answers. The business environment has become so dynamic and ever changing that you really need to be nifty and effective in your problem-solving, otherwise your business will always lag behind and eventually become a dinosaur. 

What’s your problem? The definition first; the rest second.