The Problem Is …. How to Solve It?
Article written by Mark Easdown
Individuals, Teams & Enterprise, Mental Models, Ways of Working
““A problem well put is half solved.””
““I think that there is only one way to science – or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live happily, till death do ye part – unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children …””
““By operating without a leader the scout bees of a swarm neatly avoid one of the greatest threats to good decision making by groups: a domineering leader. Such an individual reduces a group’s collective power to uncover a diverse set of possible solutions to a problem, to critically appraise these possibilities, and to winnow out all but the best one.””
““Probably he played it the way he did because it was not a good piano. Because he could not fall in love with it he found another way to get the most out of it.” ”
Did you know ?
3M has a “flexible attention” policy (take a walk, nap, play a game) as they know creative ideas and problem solutions can sneak up on us as we pay attention to something else. Ideas flow between silos with engineers rotated between departments each few years.
Problem solving is a process followed to find solutions to difficult or complex issues.
What might that look like ?
Variances & deviations from desired outcomes – this may be pleasant (an opportunity) or unpleasant (Apollo 13)
For a problem to be solved suggests some precision in description, identification, root cause
Maybe we have a criterion that our best explanation or lived experience just fails to meet
An exploration of problem solving uncovers useful practices, shines a light on power structures and reveals a wider array of human perceptions, traits & group dynamics;
Author Charlan Nemeth in “No! , The power of disagreement in a world that wants to get along” highlights the case of United Airlines Flight 173, in the days before Christmas in 1978 flying from NY to Portland Oregon, USA. As the plane approached Portland it lowered the landing gear and the cockpit heard a large thump with the plane vibrating and rotating. The pilot questioned the landing gear, aborted landing and put the plane into a holding pattern. For 45 minutes, pilot and crew investigated the flight panel & landing gear problem yet overlooked the fact the plane proceeded to run out of fuel, falling out of sky, killing 10 people of the 196 on board, just six miles from airport. How can this problem solving go so tragically wrong?
Good problem solving needs: cognitive diversity, valuing dissent to mitigate consensus “fails” & “group think”, a clear approach in stressful situations, switch thinking or adding some randomness to process, a healthy power relationship (no hubris or silencing of opposition, a need for participative management & subordinate assertiveness training), multiple approaches to problem solving (broad information search, multiple alternatives considered), a human tendency to not see a solution if it is at odds with majority judgement, the very action of voicing dissent with conviction will alter the perception & awareness of others.
Maybe the way things “are” differ from our best thinking or theory on the way things “should be” .
Let’s take a look at Problem Solving & Mental Models across a few domains; In Adversity, In Manufacturing, In Investment Markets and In Nature
Producing your finest problem solving & improvisation, driven on by adversity
“”Messy : How to be creative and resilient in a tidy-minded world””
In January 1975, 17 year old Vera Brandes stood on the stage of the Cologne Opera House, awaiting a full house, as the youngest concert promoter in Germany. Vera had convinced American Jazz Pianist, Keith Jarrett to perform a solo recital, had arranged the grand concert hall, invited 1,400 people and arranged for delivery of a very specific & artist requested Bosendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand piano.
The problem for Vera’s project was that the opera house staff had wheeled out the wrong piano and gone home. They had wheeled out a small piano which would not produce enough sound to reach the furthest balconies, the piano was out of tune, the black notes in the middle of the keyboard didn’t work, the piano pedals were stuck – it was unplayable. In the scarce time before the concert, the local piano tuner concluded that given the heavy rain outside, a substitute piano would not survive the transitional trip from nearby storage facility.
Technicians spent several hours trying to make the piano sound halfway decent, the high and low notes jangled, the piano pedals malfunctioned and even the performer was suffering from several days of back pain and wearing extra spinal support. Understandably Keith Jarrett refused to play, but Vera Brandes cajoled, pacified & pleaded and at 11-30pm the concert finally began.
So with Vera Brandes project flashing bright red, what problem solving skills did Keith Jarrett deploy to overcome sub-optimal & malfunctioning tools ?
As the author says “ The minute he played the first note, everybody knew this was magic”, “It was beautiful and strange”, “ The Koln concert album has sold 3.5 million copies, no other solo jazz album nor piano solo has matched it”, “Jarrett really had to play the piano very hard to get enough volume to the balconies”, “ ….”handed a mess, Keith Jarrett embraced it, and soared”.
Toyota Business Practices (TBP) – A problem solving model
Toyota has a rich and deep history of instruction, values, actions shared, practiced, experienced and refined by many staff across many cultures around the world. Its Best Practices are constantly evolving. Toyota Business Practices are an example of tangible approaches to daily work, the essence of TBP is a problem solving model. Whilst a mastery is achieved across time and through daily work and with a mindset of drive and dedication, a basic summary includes the following elements;
Toyota defines “a problem” as a gap between the current state (as is) and future/ideal state (to be). The concept of problem is not viewed as a negative, as to find problems and to take countermeasures to eliminate them leads to continuous improvement.
““No one has more trouble than the person who claims to have no trouble””
A summary of the basic steps of Toyota Problem Solving, 2006 includes;
1. Clarify the Problem: requires understanding and pre-emptive thinking around: Ultimate Goal (what is the contribution, the purpose, how is it realised and for whom?), Current Situation ( talk to people involved, observe, concrete terms) & Ideal Situation ( a clear standard result to be achieved after problem is solved, it is a concrete & achievable and contributes to the ultimate goal)
2. Break down the Problem: requires qualitative and quantitative analysis, prioritise and break down bigger problem into smaller and more concrete ones to observe and find the point of occurrence
3. Set a Target: A target is measurable & states by when & is challenging in nature
4. Analyse the Root Cause: look at the point of occurrence & cascade thinking through asking why & seek peer review. If the countermeasures are applied to something other than root cause – this leads to wasted effort and resources
5. Develop countermeasures: develop many versions, select highest value-add & compliance, build consensus , make clear action plans
6. See countermeasures through: implement with concerted efforts, speed & persistence, share information, inform, report and consult, trial and error to expected results
7. Monitor results & process: ensure targets achieved, understand reasons for success or failure and accumulate continuous improvement knowledge
8. Standardise Successful Process: establish new standard and start next round of continuous problem solving / PDCA
““I have found it helpful to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem I face is a puzzle I need to solve. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the form of a principle that helps me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. Collecting these gems continually improves my decision making, so I am able to ascend to higher and higher levels of play in which the game gets harder and the stakes become ever greater.” ”
Ray Dalio – Principles & Problem Solving in Investment Management
In 1975, Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates which went on to become the world’s largest hedge fund by 2005. He is known as a successful investor, innovator and aimed to structure global portfolios with uncorrelated investment returns, with allocations based on risk analysis rather than by asset classes. In 2011, Ray & Barbara Dalio established a philanthropic foundation and pledged to donate more than half their fortune in their lifetimes. In 2011, he self-published on-line his philosophy of investment which evolved to be an acclaimed 2017 book “Principles” on corporate management and investment. An overview of the framework Ray Dalio approaches problem solving includes;
1. Have Clear Goals: You cannot have everything – prioritise, don’t conflate your goals with just desires and decide what you really want, setbacks are important to making progress – in bad times you may need to modify goals to preserve what you have.
2. Identify & don’t tolerate problems: a useful mind hack if that painful problems are usually a good signpost you have a problem worth diagnosing and improving, don’t avoid problems as they are rooted in harsh and unpleasant realities, be precise and specific with your problem description, pull apart causes and the real problem, fix problems that yield biggest returns and take care small problems are not symptoms of larger ones, failing to address a problem has the same consequences as failing to identify it.
3. Diagnose problems to get at their root causes: don’t jump immediately into solution mode, identify “what” before commencing “what to do about it”, you must identify the root cause – not proximate ones, sometimes you will find the root cause is people or system or process, it can be a painful journey to resolution
4. Design a Plan: visual what you need to do to achieve goals, what needs to change to produce better outcomes, there are possibly many pathways – you just need to find one that works, create a narrative and time lines, identify tasks that connect to the narrative to achieve goals.
5. Push through to completion : you will need self-discipline, good work habits (well organised, to-do lists, priorities) are vastly underrated, establish clear metrics, have another monitor your results, as you discover new problems – repeat
Dalio’s problem solving mental models also covers: self-awareness (knowing your weakness & staring into them is a first step to success), seek to understand what your missing, be humble & radically open-minded (address ego and blind spot barriers), beware of harmful emotions, first learn then decide, simplify, use principles, determine who you should be listening to and what is true, be very specific about problems – don’t start with generalisations, convert your principles into algorithms and have these make decisions alongside you.
“The Waggle Dance” – Nest site selection & group decision making
In the 1950s, Martin Lindauer published a study on house hunting by honey bees and observed that bee scouts perform “waggle dances” on the surface of a swarm to advertise potential new nest sites. Advancing this research Cornell biologist Thomas Seeley noted the process was “complicated enough to rival the dealings of any department committee”, as potentially 10,000+ bees will relocate and need an efficient process to narrow alternatives and mitigate risks of bad decisions. When a hive gets too crowded, its queen and half the hive will swarm to a nearby tree and wait for several hundred scouts to go house hunting. Seeley notes “the bee’s method, which is a product of disagreement and contest rather than consensus and compromise, consistently yields excellent collective decisions”
Let’s explore the bee’s problem to solve;
The bee colony survival is as stake, so an accurate decision is required. New home must be suitable for rearing brood and storing honey and offer protections from: predators, thieves and bad weather.
A speedy decision is required, as the more hours the entire hive is exposed to elements it loses energy and reserves
A unified choice is required. Communications and contestability are crucial, a split decision could be fatal
What can bees teach us about problem solving & decision making?
Whilst the problem to solve is of a clear and stable nature, information may be incomplete or inaccurate
Information in a complex environment may be constantly evolving and changing
Bees use hundreds of independent, widely distributed scouts who return with heterogeneous information (differing constituents, dissimilar components, non-uniform in composition) which may be better or worse and is shared with other scouts by way of a waggle dance, no scout is stifled & the swarm leverages its collective intelligence.
So, how do they find consensus as any individual scout has only direct experience with select potential sites, yet many are examined and considered?
It is in the friendly competition between scouts and the various coalitions all vying for favoured sites, the exercise is not solved with “group-think”, rather a scout may leave the swarm cluster and go to examine potential site to judge its merit. There is no need for an individual scout to have a macro global view of all alternatives, nor a need to tally and compare votes – it is the smarts of the swarm working as individuals or collectives making speedy, accurate and unified assessments.
To recap
As we have seen across multiple domains and across several mental models, problems are not necessarily a bad thing – sometimes they are a pathway to travel to deliver quality strategic outcomes, sometimes they are a link in a chain of continuous improvement (kaizen), if they are material they must be addressed to mitigate severe consequences (Flight 173, Investment Returns and bee hive nest selection), a structure and process is very useful, to solve problems will often reveal some uncomfortable truths about the nature of the individuals, the group, power structures, communications and these must also be confronted and resolved.
Yet, as Keith Jarrett demonstrated bringing passion, intelligence, skill, pragmatism and persistence to problem solving, can yield your teams greatest moment. White Ark is here to help you.
When Richard Feynman faces a problem, he's unusually good at going back to being like a child, ignoring what everyone else thinks... He was so unstuck --- if something didn't work, he'd look at it another way." --- Marvin Minsky, MIT
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Article written by Mark Easdown
