Problems are nothing but wake-up calls for creativity.
I am going to be honest here, my go to problem solving strategy is often WAIT. It works 90% of the time! Many times the “problem” just goes away. Other times, the information I need becomes available and the solution becomes apparent.
Then again, this problem solving approach led to one of the toughest weekends we have experienced at Cairn Leadership. We had some amazing clients joining us for a snow camping and skiing trip in Mammoth last February, when a normal snowstorm went sideways. It became a giant blizzard that eventually left our clients stranded at a cabin in Mammoth and the guides stranded at a Motel 6 in Bishop all weekend.
Waiting to see was definitely not the best option. In retrospect, I wish we had listened and communicated more effectively with our clients. I wish my team and I had come to more proactive conclusions when the weather looked iffy. I wish we had used a more effective team problem solving process.
So, learn from my mistakes. Here are some tools you can use to put together your own problem solving process as life throws the unexpected at you and your team.
What is a problem?
Much of life is simply solving problems. They honestly make things interesting. They open doors and the resulting solutions can radically improve our lives. They often become fodder for an entrepreneur to create new businesses. We can embrace problems as opportunities. The dictionary definition of problem ranges from “an unpleasant or harmful situation” to a “question or matter that involves uncertainty or difficulty.”
Problems are the result of a lack of clarity and an increase in difficulty as we try to reach our goals. There are two ways problems arise, expected and unexpected.
Case 1: Something unexpected makes your goal more difficult or your path less certain. Examples: a pleasant snowstorm turning into a raging blizzard over 48 hours, shipping rerouted around Africa dramatically increases your product cost, or your babysitter cancels last minute.
Case 2: Something expected makes your goal more difficult. Examples: you decide to climb a mountain that is just outside your current fitness and skill level, your goal is to design something that has never been created, you need to create a marketing strategy for your new service.
What is a solution?
Let’s define ‘solution’ as the correct answer to a question (a good go to market strategy or the answer to your kid’s math homework) or a means of dealing with a difficult situation (a workout plan to get fit for your mountain climb or clear OKRs to drive your strategy).
Solutions are the decisions and actions that make the paths to our goals easier and more clear. Problem solving is the process we use to find the answers to tough questions or means to make situations less difficult.
There are myriad processes for problem solving available, including my favorite ‘wait and see.’ You can use design thinking, the Military Operational Planning Process, the process below, or your own time tested process. Like decision making, it matters more that you have a process and actually use it than what the exact process looks like.
Why should problem solving be a team sport?
Problem solving mirrors decision making in many ways. When we teach decision making, we begin by pointing out that teams need to clearly decide how to make the decision before trying to actually decide. Making a directive decision as the leader can be much faster, but it also can lead to low buy in from the team. Trying to reach consensus can take forever but can lead to better solutions and much more buy in.
Team problem solving typically will yield more innovative results because of the diverse perspectives a team brings to the process. When you involve a number of people in the search for a solution, it becomes much more likely that someone has seen and solved a similar problem in the past. Leaders who can bring in team expertise will find better solutions.
Why a problem solving process is critical
Just as in making a decision, team problem solving can devolve into wild group think and ineffective meetings very quickly without a process. At first trying to use a process will feel cumbersome. People will complain about the extra effort for relatively simple problem solving, but building the habit of using a process will help you catch potential mistakes and get ahead of heuristics, or mental shortcuts, that could lead to disaster when unchecked.
A good process will likely include the following:
1. Clarify the problem:
If you don’t understand the essence of the problem, you will have a hard time solving it. Solving the wrong problem could lead to bigger problems. Take it from any guy who bought flowers for his wife when she really only wanted him to listen.
You can use tools like asking why five times or establishing a logical chain to find a root cause. In an unexpected situation this could be very fast. In an expected situation, you might take a lot of time for interviews, data collection, and reflection before moving on. You want to create a specific and clear problem statement at the end.
Note, half the battle is awareness. We often muddle through situations assuming they have to be as unclear or difficult as they are when in reality we could make them much better. What problems are you suffering through right now?
2. Generate options:
The more potential solutions you have, the better. In this step, building psychological safety is critical to leverage the full value of diversity on your team.
Tip: Make sure the most junior people on the team offer ideas first. If your senior leaders speak first, everyone else will likely conform.
Tip: Have people reflect and write solutions down before discussing them as a group.
Design thinking is also a great tool for this step. Embrace divergent thinking and come up with as many wacky ideas as you can. They likely won’t be the solution, but collectively may point to a great answer.
Note the small blue arrow back to clarify the problem in the above diagram. Often as we generate options, we can refine the problem statement at the same time.
3. Evaluate options:
The fun is over. It is time for convergent thinking. Time to prune away bad options. This is where having a clear decision making process will help tremendously.
Consider, how much time and resources will each option take? Can you iterate on an option, or will you be fairly committed once you choose it? What are the risks if an option does not work? Will you have buy-in from the organization for the option?
Tip: Use a premortem to imagine the worst case outcome of choosing an option. I wish we would have used this in Mammoth last year. We would have seen the possibility of being stranded in Bishop!
Tip: Use and wargaming to insert your solution into real life. Have a red cell role play the adversary to uncover potential issues with your solution.
Tip: Start with common sense and move to more sophisticated tools. Consider Occam’s Razor – the simplest option is often the most effective.
4. Select a solution:
Finally you choose your course of action. At this point you will need to build buy-in if it’s a big problem. Amazon has a leadership principle of ‘disagree and commit.’ Building something like this into your culture can remove a lot of headaches and create alignment on tough issues.
5. Implement your solution:
The key to implementation is to ensure one person is in charge. If you task five people (or departments) with feeding the dog, the dog goes hungry. Then constantly evaluate. Your implementation will inevitably change the problem which will land you right back at step one.
Three tools for team problem solving
Leverage multiple ‘intelligences’: As adult learning geeks, we work hard to use multiple intelligences in our programs. People all tend to favor a couple ways of learning and thinking. Some like to listen, some watch, some do, and some sing. If you can incorporate a couple different modes of presentation and problem solving, you will get collectively more clear and useful thoughts. Try synthesizing the issue into a white paper for people to read. Have another person create an engaging presentation about the problem. Have people walk and talk about the issue and have others run mini scenarios. By doing more than just explaining the problem and talking about solutions, you’ll get more than the standard answers!
Use systems thinking: As soon as you notice a pattern in a problem, or you try to solve a problem and the solution does not behave as expected, you can bet you are facing a systemic problem. You’ll need to think holistically and focus on the underlying paradigms and rules that drive the system rather than reducing the problem to its individual parts. Read more about systems thinking as a leadership skill!
Hone critical thinking skills: We talk about critical thinking often, but few understand what it actually is and fewer apply it. If you hear statements like “this is the only way,” you have untested assumptions, or you tend to try to solve problems without enough data, you likely need more critical thinking. Read more about critical thinking fundamentals.
Big mistake: Assumptions kill creativity and hide great solutions. As a leader, you need to hunt them down and examine them one by one. This will make you look silly as you challenge what everyone takes for granted. Still, questions like, “yes but, what if we did not have to pay for that…” can lead to massive creative solutions.
The fastest way to move forward!
Make no mistake, learning to solve increasingly complex problems might be the key skill for you to get promoted and take on higher levels of leadership. If you can’t leverage your leadership and tools like critical thinking to run an effective problem solving process, it would be foolish to promote you to the next level. If you consistently solve your boss’ problems, it would be foolish to keep you where you are!
To improve your problem solving skills, work on identifying problems around you. Dig into the root cause and then use leadership and critical thinking to find solutions, ideally with your team.
Want to solve your team’s problems at warp speed? Join us for a team adventure where our guides and facilitators will help you ask the questions you need to ask and then identify and implement solutions!
