For long time readers, you’ll know that I believe that overcoming problems is the pathway to business agility.
The challenge is that there are always more problems than you can ever overcome. This is why it pays to be selective.
Only solve problems worth solving
As a general rule of thumb, you should only be solving problems that are on your path towards your painted picture and goals. If you don’t have a clear direction then any problem could be considered fair game - and that could be a waste of time.
If a problem keeps popping up, you haven't solved it entirely
Another general rule of thumb is that if the problem keeps emerging, even when you’ve dedicated time, energy and attention to solving it, you have not actually solved the problem. The chances are you’ve solved symptoms of the problem - but the root problem is still there.
Easy problems are typically just symptoms of something deeper
The final rule of thumb to consider is that if the problem is easy to solve, the chances are you’ve also not got to the root of it.
If it is easy to solve, yet it requires management intervention, then you need to work on delegating responsibility, so that everyone feels they can solve these types of problems without escalation. Driving out fear would be a good first step.
How to narrow a problem down
Managers, in my opinion, should be working on solving “systemic” problems - those kinds of problems that have often been hanging around for a while and make it hard to get good work done.
These are problems that cross functional boundaries and seem tough to solve. These kinds of problems affect everyone working in the system of work - and the reason they hang around and keep emerging, is because they are really tough to solve.
And that’s why you need to study the problem. Staple yourself to the problem, or the effects and consequences. Gather evidence and data about the problem. Involve people who are banging their heads against the problem in the solution to it.
Name It
Once you have all of this information, narrow the problem down.
Keep narrowing until you can give the problem a name, you can see the shape of it, you all understand what the problem is - and it’s obvious that the solutions and action you take could solve it.
This is what we do in the Vending Machine workshop. We get to the root of problems and we give it a product shape, a name and a description, with facts and evidence.
In the workshop we create a physical representation of the root problem. We design a product to represent the problem. We name it.
We make it look appealing to anyone using the vending machine.
After all, leadership is about making the problems of the business interesting, inspiring and worth solving.
We allocate the problem product a slot amongst all of the other problem products in the vending machine.
We can touch the problem, hold it, talk about it, describe it, and discuss solutions to it. We can extract it from the vending machine and get to work solving it.
The Vending Machine idea works because we narrow problems down and move into smaller action steps to solve it - but you could do posters, simple text documents, images or any other medium to bring the problems to life.
We grow in confidence as we tackle the problem, and our ability to overcome the many strands of the problems grows with each forward step to solve it.
The fact we can point at the problem and talk about it means we’ve broken it down into something understandable. We can converse about it. We can solve parts of it.
We’re not trying to solve a slow system of delivery as one whole piece. We’re chunking it down into understandable steps and fixing each one in a sequence that makes sense. As we overcome one aspect or one strand, we grow in confidence. We know we can fix the whole problem.
We’re not trying to tackle a low engagement survey score as a whole giant problem. We’re tackling parts of it by narrowing it down - like poor management, lack of clarity in a team or by re-invigorating our communication strategy about our mission.
We’re not tackling a lack of software test servers as a whole problem. We’ve narrowed it down to the stages of delivery, or server by server, and fixing one at a time.
We’re not tackling why customers leave us after 6 months as a whole giant problem. We’ve narrowed it down into smaller chunks to tackle one at a time.
The trick to solving a problem is being clear about the problem in the first place.
The more we can narrow various aspects of the root cause, and describe it, and give each one a name, and assign potential solutions to it - the more we will grow in confidence every time we overcome each part of it.
We’ll also grow in ability and further clarity will also come forth.
You can only do this with knowledge - and knowledge comes from studying.
There are many ways to study, so use what resonates and makes sense. But without the insights, evidence and data, you’ll be left with a vague description of the problem at hand - and it’s likely not even the root cause.
People will have strong opinions about the problem and the solution, but it doesn’t mean they are right - not unless we have insights, data and evidence of the problem.
Once we have that, we can narrow it down until we can describe it, touch it, see it, talk about it - and attempt to solve it.
Narrow the problem down, give it a name, create a physical representation of it if you can. Point people at it, talk about it, describe it - and then get to work solving it. But only if it’s on the path to your bright future.
