Problem Solving

I probably dont need to tell you how important a skill problem solving is to the workplace. It is vital in the workplace and in life. But it is also a skill that we already have! We are natural born problem solvers, albeit on a very instinctive level. When we are hungry, we eat. When we are tired, we go to sleep. When we are sad, we seek out things to make us happy. We all have inherent problem solving abilities. But as we age, we realize that many of the problems we encounter at work are highly complex, with solutions that arent obvious or learned in school. If you want to do something of value in the workplace, you must have the ability to solve the multitude of more complex and higher level problems that will assuredly arise. You must be able to diagnose a problem, brainstorm solutions, and then take an appropriate course of action to solve that problem. Some of us are more effective at this kind of higher level problem solving than others, but we all can become expert problem solvers. This is because effective, creative problem solving is a developed skill that can be learned, practiced, and then perfected. Some are more comfortable solving problems by themselves, and others are more comfortable solving problems in teams. There are benefits and downfalls to both of those options, but the method I will teach you will work in both team settings and personal settings. Advancing in your company or making an impact in todays 21st century workplace will be contingent upon your ability to be a creative problem solver. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a national organization that promotes and advocates teaching certain invaluable skills to students in order to prepare them for the globalized workplace of today. Members of the organization include Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard, LEGO Group, Microsoft, Verizon, and the Walt Disney Company. In their most recent publication to educators and administrators across America, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has listed creative problem solving among their essential skills for success in todays world. They are trying to make sure that no student graduating into the workforce is without the ability to effectively solve problems. If its a necessity for Apple, Dell, and Disney, than it is certainly a necessity for your company. In this Talent Track I will teach you what I know about problem solving, from the characteristics of a good problem solver, to my method for solving problems creatively, to some practical exercises you can immediately do to further develop your higher level problem solving abilities. Now, some are more comfortable solving problems by themselves, and others are more comfortable solving problems in teams. There are benefits and downfalls to both of those options, but the method I will teach you will work in both team settings and personal settings.

Five Characteristics of an Effective, Creative Problem Solver

Number 1: They are Innovators You dont have to be innovative to solve problems, but the best problem solvers are innovators. They are able to see the problem through their own personal lens, shaped by their own knowledge, life experiences, and judgments. The best part is that everyone has different life experiences, knowledge bases, and judgments, so everyone can be innovative in a totally unique and original way, different from anyone else. The key is to use those personal aspects in your viewing of the problem and your formulation of solutions. But being an innovator doesnt mean you have to be an inventor; you dont have to create a completely original and unique solution, though that is certainly a great skill to have, too. You simply can add thoughts and ideas during the problem solving process to change a solution into a better one! For example, I recently walked into a Bed, Bath and Beyond to find a broom for my sweeping chores. What I found was one of the most simple and yet most innovative solutions to a common problem found in the household chore of sweeping. What was it? A broom with a head that swiveled, making it easier to reach those tough places underneath tables, chairs, and other household obstacles. Did the designer of this product create a completely new solution never seen before? No. He or she simply tweaked an existing solution to make it an even better solution. Thats the essence of innovation. Number 2: They see problems as opportunities Problem solvers take problems head-on. They are optimists, believing that every problem has a solution, and they accept challenges instead of shying away from them. This is because to effective problem solvers, problems are nothing more than opportunities. Problems are opportunities to grow, to learn, to show your value, and to advance in the workplace. Just think about it. Every problem that arises in the workplace gives you the chance to show your bosses how valuable you are to the company. Will you shy away from the problem, showing that you either are too scared to even tackle the challenge or too unprepared to even attempt at solving it? Or will you tell yourself that, even if your solution is a failure, you are still valuable because you are eager and motivated to help the company no matter the circumstances? Any employee can sit at their desk, do exactly what they are supposed to, and let someone else take on the chore of solving some company problem. But the employees that become invaluable and make advancements in their companies are the ones that take advantage of the opportunities to solve work problems. It takes guts to leave the ruts. -- Robert Shuler, Minister

Another important aspect of seeing problems as opportunities is that you have to understand and be willing to take risks. If you want to advance in your company, show your worth to your bosses, or do anything else to make the company better, you have to understand risk. To solve any problem, you must take the necessary risks associated with getting and executing the best solution. To give you an example of the importance of understanding risk, heres an example: Destination ImagiNation, Inc. is a global creative problem solving program for students from Pre-K through college. Every year, the teams of students in the same age group compete against each other at DI sponsored creative problem solving tournaments, with the top teams across the world advancing through numerous local and state tournaments to compete against each other at the Global Finals. While the details of what exactly goes on at DI tournaments can be confusing to an outsider, the basic goal is for the teams to get the most points in two rounds of competition, the long term challenge and the instant challenge. The long term challenge gives the teams a chance to show off to judges a solution to the challenge that the team has been working on for months. But the instant challenge pits teams against the clock as they must instantly solve a challenge in roughly 3 to 5 minutes. Once you learn effective problem solving strategies later on in this lesson, you will certainly gain a greater confidence in solving problems and in understanding risk that will cause you to view problems as not just annoyances, but opportunities vital to your growth in the workplace. And this brings us to Number 3... Number 3: They are self-confident Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. - Samuel Johnson, Author Problem solvers always believe that they can complete the task and have the skills necessary to solve the problem. Believing in yourself and being confident in your abilities to solve problems is critical to you actually becoming a great problem solver. Being self-confident allows you to keep your cool under pressure. Whether the time line for solving your problem is 6 months or 6 minutes, having the ability to stay cool under pressure and use your time effectively comes with the confidence that you can solve problems no matter the nature, the time allowed, or the circumstances. Many have fears that will inhibit their problem solving abilities. Some fear that they will undoubtedly fail. Some fear that their idea for a solution will be embarrassing. Some fear that they will miss the deadline, or take too long to solve the problem. You will never be able to overcome all the fears that arise in the problem solving process until you are confident in

yourself and your abilities. Once you learn the effective problem solving process and you internalize it, you will have the skills necessary to be valued in the workplace as a problem solver. It will just be a matter of being confident in that process and being confident in your ability to use that process. Number 4: They understand the importance of thinking outside the box Thinking outside the box is one of those phrases we hear a lot, but dont really grasp. How exactly does one magically learn to see a problem and not be enclosed by convention, restrictions, and supposed boundaries? Thinking outside the box is one of the few characteristics of great problem solvers that arent instantly learned. You must begin to see things in a whole new way, and then train yourself to keep seeing things in a new way. Lets have a visual example:

Above you should see 9 dots in the shape of a box. Find a piece of scratch paper and a pen or pencil and draw this same box on your paper. Now, without lifting up your pen or pencil, make 4 straight lines that connect all 9 dots in the box. Keep trying all the different combinations of 4 interconnected lines. You may end up with boxes that look like these below:

There seems to always be one dot remaining. This problem is impossible you may say. But its not! The only way to solve this problem is to think outside the box.

Once you understand that your solution doesnt have to be confined to the boundaries of our box or the conventional wisdom of staying inside the problem, it makes it easier to see how you can solve this problem. All you have to do is remove yourself from those boundaries and take a step back to view the problem from a different perspective. In this case, our perspective needed to be broader and it needed to include the white space around the conventional boundaries of the black dots. Now granted, our dot problem was a literal example of thinking outside the box, and with most problems we need to figuratively think outside the box. But learning how to view problems differently, as we did in this example, is an important exercise. Using our dot problem as a basic exercise, here is my general motto for exercising your outside the box thinking: DONT break the law, your companys policies, or your ethical guidelines. DO break past conventional wisdom, imaginary boundaries, and the temptation to view the problem from only one perspective. Number 5: They persevere through the entire process and the other adversities that arise This characteristic is probably the most obvious. Problem solvers simply dont give up. They completely sell out for a solution, giving all of their energy and efforts into solving the problem. There are only a few things certain in life: death, taxes, and adversity. And during the problem solving process, other adversities will arise. You may find out that your proposed solution just came back from the financial office and is simply not fiscally possible. Or perhaps you are working with a team and one of your team members has suddenly quit, making the team short one more creative mind. Perseverance is what defines the best and brightest problem solvers. Effective problem solvers understand that other adversities are a guarantee, and yet they make conscious decisions to endure through the trials. This is because to effective problem solvers, adversity brings a benefit of maturity to oneself. Adversity makes you more mature, because it makes you more flexible. Through challenges, failures, and unexpected annoyances, you learn to adapt, to accept, and to let go of things you cant control. You become flexible and therefore more mature in the workplace. John C. Maxwell, an expert in the field of personal and professional development, tells a story about a University of Houston professor in his book Attitude 101 . According to Maxwell, Professor Jack Matson has developed a course that teaches his students how to deal with failures and become flexible. His students create products that would never

have a chance of being sold. All the hard work his students put into creating these in depth products that will never become anything marketable is surely a frustrating adversity. But Matson teaches his students to let go of their failure, and become flexible. His students can make adjustments to their failed products, or they can start over. Either way, they will persevere and learn that adversity isnt bad. It creates a maturity and flexibility that will make enduring through especially difficult adversities much more manageable.

The Suggested 5-Step Creative Problem Solving Process

The following 6-step problem solving process is one that I have used in my educational and professional life, and it is a wonderful starting point. It is crazy to think that everyone can use the exact same steps to reach a solution, but this process can be easily adapted to fit your circumstances or the circumstances of your team. STEP 1: Identify This may be the most obvious of all the steps, but it is critically important that you and/or your team can correctly identify the root problem. What do I mean by the root problem? Well, the question you think you should answer may not actually be the base of the problem. If my company is having problems in sales, the obvious question I may start with is, How can I increase my sales for the next term? But the root problem is likely something completely different. Perhaps sales are lacking because of a lack of employee work ethic. Or perhaps sales are lacking because of a lack of solid marketing. Then your questions should be: How can I increase employee morale and drive? or How can we better market our product or service? You see, those are the root problems that you should focus on, not the vague lack of sales problem. My favorite method to finding the root problem is to try and ask up to 3 Why? questions. Here is a scenario: Company XYZ is losing in the sales race of Cell Phone 2000 to Company ABC, who is selling the Cell Phone 5.0. Why? Customers seem to prefer Company ABCs Cell Phone 5.0 over the Cell Phone 2000. Why? Cell Phone A has shown in surveys to be considered ugly compared to the sleeker Cell Phone B.

Why? Survey results show that customers think there is an awkward color scheme, and the features on the Cell Phone 2000 arent as relevant to customers as the features on the Cell Phone 5.0. So the root problem is that Company XYZ needs to incorporate a sleeker design with a popular color scheme and more relevant features into their next phone. STEP 2: Analyze Analyzing all of the outside influences in your problem will save you time, money, and headaches. This is the step where you figure out who is going to solve the problem, what legal issues may become involved, what company rules may become involved, what your timeframe is, and what other constraints might arise. This is also a great step in which to integrate thinking outside the box. When you look at the problem and all of the outside influences and constraints, you can begin to analyze which boundaries can be moved, changed or forgotten, and which boundaries you absolutely must abide by. STEP 3: Brainstorm This is my favorite step in the process, because this is where the creativity comes to play. Generally, brainstorming is a practice where either just you or the members of the problem solving team can create, or piggyback ideas for solutions. My two rules for brainstorming are: 1- While there may be ideas that seem way off the mark, there are no bad ideas. Striking down someones idea immediately creates hostility and really puts a hamper on creative thinking. And 2- Because there are no bad ideas, record every idea that is brought up during a brainstorming session. You WILL NOT remember all of them! Many of the often thought bad ideas create wonderful piggybacking opportunities. Piggybacking is when you or someone else takes any part of an idea and then expands, contracts, or simply re-imagines it in a unique way to make it different and sometimes better. Remember how important innovation is to being a good problem solver? Well brainstorming gives several opportunities to innovate by piggybacking off of someone elses ideas. STEP 4: Decide and Execute

This is the most difficult part of the process. After brainstorming and listing the positives and negatives of all the ideas, you or your team must commit to an idea and see it through to the end. This doesnt mean however that you cant adapt or revise your solut ion in the midst of the process of execution. Truly good ideas are always being changed for the better, even in the midst of executing them. If you are too stubborn to make your idea even better, you may be successful at solving problems for a little while, but you wont be able to solve the larger problems that are highly complex. STEP 5: Criticize No idea is absolutely perfect, and there is always room to get better, more creative, more innovative, and more efficient in your solutions. It is important that you or your team take time to objectively look at the results of executing your solution, and find the areas to concentrate on improving upon for next time.