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In This Episode:
It’s tempting to jump straight to solutions, but guessing at fixes without understanding the real problem wastes time, money, and trust. This episode covers practical principles for solving problems well: defining the real issue, avoiding assumptions, finding the root cause, and knowing when, and when not, to lean on experts.
What You’ll Learn
- Why “solution guessing,” jumping to fixes before understanding the real problem, wastes time and money and often solves the wrong thing entirely
- The difference between deterministic problems (clear cause and effect) and more complex problems with multiple causes, and why that distinction should change your approach
- Why clearly defining the problem, and avoiding treating assumptions as facts, has to come before anything else
- Why going to see a problem firsthand beats trying to solve it from a distance
- How to use the five whys and the “problem restatement” technique to find the real root cause instead of just the symptom
- Why relying too heavily on experts can backfire, including how the curse of knowledge and over-reliance on past experience can mislead even genuine experts
- Why Occam’s razor, favoring the simplest workable solution, is worth remembering before over-engineering a fix
Resources Mentioned
Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers by Nat Greene
Transcript
As leaders and people, we have problems that we have to solve. Sometimes big, sometimes small, and depending how we go about solving them, it can determine a lot on the results we get.
If we’re not careful, we can end up wasting a lot of time and not get the results that we want. Or we end up solving the wrong thing, and it doesn’t fix anything.
So in this episode, I want to go over with you and you’ll learn some of the different problem-solving strategies that you can use to help you solve problems better and hopefully even quicker.
Two Types of Problems
Now, there are—depending who you ask and where you look—you’ll find different categories or types of problems. I’m just going to talk about two different types.
One is deterministic. So some problems are deterministic, which means there’s a clear cause and effect. There’s a part broken in the machine, so the machine’s not working.
Others are a little bit more complex. Maybe a toxic culture, and it may have multiple causes, and it might be some different solutions that could work in that situation. Understanding the type of problem can help guide you in how you solve it.
The Problem vs. the Root Cause
And it’s important, too, to note the distinctions between the problem you’re seeing and the root cause of the problem. If the machine’s rattling, the problem is the rattling, or maybe things aren’t coming out as good as they’re supposed to be.
The root cause is whatever’s inside that’s making the issue. The problem might be the employee’s late frequently; the root cause is the reason why they’re late.
Knowing the root cause will help you solve the right issue.
Stop Guessing at Solutions
Why Guessing Wastes Time and Money
Now, one of my favorite books I’ve read on problem solving is a book called Stop Guessing by Nat Greene. It’s kind of a small book, but his big thing is that people often spend their time guessing at solutions instead of looking at what the real problem is.
He calls it “solution guessing.” He doesn’t even call it “problem solving.” He says a lot of people go into a situation, they come up with a bunch of possible solutions for the problem they’re seeing, and then they waste a lot of time and money trying to fix it by just guessing.
In fact, he talked about different organizations—they might they may hire groups to come in to help solve the problem, and the way they solve it is they brainstorm solutions of what could maybe fix the problem versus going in and making sure and taking the time to find what the real issue is first.
And sometimes people are praised for it, like because they’re taking—they call it taking initiative in that situation. They’re taking initiative to solve the problem, and by that they means they’re going in and just guessing and trying different things hoping to fix it.
And the thing with that is it again wastes a lot of—can waste a lot of time and money, and you end up solving the wrong thing.
When It’s Okay to Guess
It’s not that you can never guess. For example, if your light bulb isn’t working, taking a few moments to be okay, let me see if the light switch is off.
Okay, let me check the circuit breaker. Okay, let me change the bulb.
In small things, simple low-cost things, it’s okay to quickly try a few things and guess. But for larger things, more complex things, it’s often inefficient and it can be harmful because you end up wasting so much time.
So that, if anything else, one big thing to take from this is be careful just about guessing solutions, but taking the time to really dive deep and see what the real problem is. If a culture is not what it needs to be, it can even be easy to say, “Oh, it’s this,” and throw a solution that you think might fix it, that may or may not because you didn’t take the time to look for it.
If students aren’t learning in a classroom, it can easy for people at the top to be “Oh, I bet you it’s this reason” and start throwing out solutions versus taking the time to really figure out what the real issue is. Be careful about guessing.
Principles for Solving Problems
With that said, here are some principles that you can follow for solving problems. And they’re not necessarily in a specific order, but these can help you as you solve problems.
Clearly Define the Problem
So number one is clearly define the problem. You know, what is happening that shouldn’t be, or what’s not happening that should?
You want to be specific with it and it may take time to dig deep and find. And you want to avoid putting the solution as the problem.
For example, “we need new software.” Well, that’s a possible solution, but you need to look at what the problem is and what the root cause for that problem.
And if you know that, then it may be a new software, it may be something else. But make sure you clear define what the problem is.
Avoid Assumptions
Then you want to avoid assumptions. Be careful about treating assumptions like facts.
For example, in the culture, you may say it’s just because there’s not enough appreciation. And that might be true, but double check to make sure.
Be careful—is that a fact that people aren’t getting appreciation or is it something else? List out your assumptions and verify them with observable data.
Go to the Problem, Don’t Stay Detached
Then, go to the problem and don’t stay detached. One thing that leaders do too much is that they try to fix issues from afar.
You know they—like I gave the classroom example. Maybe it was something in the class—students aren’t learning as well—so the people back in the admin office, they pass all these new policies or paperwork or things that the teachers have to do, and they’re trying to solve it from afar assuming they know the answer without actually taking the time to look.
Or as that’s just education, but happens in companies, people will pass down new rules, new bureaucracy, new whatever it is—they’ll try to solve things from afar without taking the time to see it for themselves.
So when you are trying to solve a problem, don’t try to do it from afar; don’t stay detached. See it for yourself.
Visit—if it’s like a physical site—go visit it, talk to people, look at the system, whatever’s going on. Be present, touch grass, and figure out in person what some of the issues are.
Embrace Your Ignorance
Next is embrace your ignorance. It’s okay not to know everything.
It’s okay to say, “I don’t know.” That’s the best way to learn. It’s like, “I don’t know, please teach me, show me,” whatever it is.
Don’t pretend to know everything. Ask questions, learn. Adopt a curious growth mindset.
Make sure you have a curious mindset, a growth mindset, because when you do that, it helps you be able to learn what the issue is. If you’re afraid of looking ignorant, if you’re afraid of saying I don’t know, then that’s going to hurt you coming to solve the problem because you don’t know what the problem’s main issue is and by not asking questions you’re going to have a hard time.
Use the Problem Restatement Tool
Using the problem restatement tool can help. So sometimes just looking at the problem from different angles.
So for example, there’s not enough parking spots. That could be the problem—we don’t have enough parking spots. Maybe if you flip it, we have too many people trying to park at this time. Right?
Looking at it differently can help you see different solutions. Instead of “reduce errors,” maybe you want to “increase accuracy.”
Again, you look same problem in a way, but you’re looking at it differently. This shift can help you see the different solutions and fixes you might can do.
Identify the Root Cause
Next is identify the root cause, kind of what we talked about, not just the symptoms. So sometimes using the five whys.
You know, you keep asking why until you get to the real cause of it. So for example, we have high turnover. Well, why?
Well, the employees are feeling undervalued. Why? Well, they’re not getting feedback. Why?
Because the managers aren’t trained on giving feedback. Why? Well, the organization doesn’t really value leadership and so they don’t train. Oh.
And you could you keep going why from there, but like the issue is ultimately, you going back to the organization not valuing leadership in that scenario. So sometimes using the five whys, digging deep can help you.
Sometimes again going and looking yourself, asking questions can help you see what the real issue is.
Use Experts Wisely
And be careful about experts. Use experts wisely. Sometimes people just want to rely on experts to solve a problem, but that can be an issue.
And it’s one of the things Nat Greene talks about in his book. He says experts can be good to educate, but don’t let them decide for you.
Because there’s some risk when you using experts because sometimes there can be hidden agendas. Sometimes they’re about protecting their status as an expert.
So depending on—I mean of course it depends on the person—but they may not want to ask certain questions or show any kind of ignorance or whatever because they want to protect their status as the quote-unquote expert.
The curse of knowledge can help hurt them. And we talked about it a few episodes ago, that when you know something or you get to know something, it blinds you to other possibilities and other solutions.
And sometimes you get more of a narrow view because of that. And sometimes you forget some of the basics that you started with when it—and so sometimes the curse of knowledge can hurt experts when it comes to those things.
And they may have over-reliance on past experiences. So “this is the what’s worked in this situation,” they did this in this situation, so they assume it’s going to work in this one because that’s what’s happened in the past.
It’s not that using experts is bad of course; you want to use them to listen and learn, but Nat Greene, he really suggests that you don’t hand off decision making to them.
Avoid Over-Complicating the Solution
You also want to be careful about over-complicating the solution. You may have heard of Occam’s razor: usually it’s the simplest solution.
Of course it’s not always, but often. Many problems have a simple—though maybe though it may not always be easy—solution.
And so sometimes we can get tempted to over-engineer or over-complicate our fixes. We just got to be careful about that.
Sometimes the simple is the best and sometimes the simple’s the right way. So be careful just about over-complicating.
Solving Problems as a Team
Now, as a team, depending on your issue, you may—or as a leader of a team—you may solve it yourself, right, depending what it is. You may involve others, you may delegate it.
If someone’s come to you about a problem, depending what it is, like if it’s something that they can’t handle, of course you may do something or take a step with it. But if something’s in their purview, you don’t want to go and solve it for them; you want to help them where they can solve it themselves.
But as a team, there’s different things you might do, right? So as a team, when a problem comes up, you may explore the problem together, may investigate root causes, you may brainstorm solutions depending on the type of the problem, but you’re not guessing at the problem.
And when I say brainstorm solutions, maybe there’s the toxic culture, for example, and you’ve looked at the root causes and “hey, what do we need to do to solve this?” And so you’re looking at the solutions that could solve the root causes that you have found.
And just make sure, of course, as always, clear communication in the process.
Wrapping Up
So those were some strategies that you can use to help you with problem solving. The big one again is not to guess but to look at the root cause to make sure you actually solving the right thing.
Have any questions? thomas@realtruthleadership.com. You can go to realtruthleadership.com for the no-cost training that’s pretty comprehensive for leadership and it covers—I have this topic plus a lot of other things that can help you from communication to decision making other things, conflict resolution.
Hope it helps. See you next time.