Problem type 1: cognition problems

Cognition problems occur where there is a single answer or a limited number of possible answers. Too often we seek the wisdom of the one person we think has real insight, when consulting the group might deliver the best solution. However, we should also note that the right answer may only be revealed once it has been enacted, e.g. how many people can you get in a Mini? Interestingly, if you ask 20 people this and take an average of the estimates, you will be close to the real answer. Your management style should be collaborative in problem solving.

Problem type 2: coordination problems

These problems are usually based around a number of people who have a common goal but whose activities need to be synchronised so that this goal is achieved. They need to coordinate their behaviour with each other. Many of our workplace problems are coordination problems. Our second example of a problem – not being part of the decision-making process – could be a simple cooperation problem if the reasons for not including you are less about the vanity of the decision makers themselves and more just about absent-mindedness or lack of consideration for your feelings.

Problem type 3: Cooperation problems

Cooperation problems occur where individuals have a personal agenda, which may make it difficult for the goal to be achieved – self-interest and distrust are often the blockers here. In our organisations, different teams and departments, although subscribing to common organisational goals (or maybe not!), may have conflicting or counter-productive approaches to achieving those goals. Our second problem – that of the awkward colleague – may well be an example of this, though equally the source of the problem could be simple misunderstandings, which may make it a coordination problem.

Re-state the problem-solving goal

One challenge is to not let blame cloud your definition of the problem. For example, in problem 3 we see someone who finds that decisions are made that affect him/her where the person concerned has little say. It’s easy to point the finger at the decision makers and say, ‘They have a problem.’ But what if that finger pointed back at you and said, ‘Ok, it’s actually your problem, how can you rethink your perspective on the problem?’ You might therefore reframe the problem-solving goal to say: ‘How can I have more influence over the decision-making process?’

It’s a pro-active goal

Developing further the problem above, you can even be more precise: ‘How can I build my credibility so that I have more influence in the decision-making process?’ (if the evidence suggests that lack of credibility is the problem) is better than ‘stopping people taking decisions without consulting me’. It has a good, active feel – it’s a far more positive statement.

Challenge your assumptions

This is a challenge across all of the five steps. If we refer back to problem 2 – the ‘awkward’ person – you might make the assumption that the other person is the one with a problem. But when you look at the problem you might find that this person’s behaviour is fine with others, it’s only you who experiences what you see as awkward behaviour. Your definition of the problem-solving goal will be very different if the real evidence shows something different to what you imagined it to be.

One-dimensional ideas

• These are more like ‘habits’ than ideas. Possibly things you do or know already.
• It’s usually the instinctive realm for ideas. We go first to what we know or are familiar with. They are conventional paradigms – a system of beliefs that guides the way we do things.
• 1-D habits are crucial in organisations. They bind your organisation together. An example of a 1-D idea/habit is the way we typically pay people at or near the end of every month.

Two-dimensional ideas

• These are what we call ‘evolutionary’ ideas.
• They usually occur when we make a link between similar things that share some characteristics and apply one to the other. Detroit’s Motown records, for example (Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, etc.), the creation of music genius Berry Gordy, modelled its template for creating hit records on the way that vehicles were produced in Detroit’s car-making factories. The ‘likeness’ came from the fact they both had production lines.

Three-dimensional ideas

• These are revolutionary ideas.
• They make connections between things that, on the surface at least, do not have any connection. Take the example of the African village that needed a fuel source to pump fresh water out of the ground but couldn’t afford one. To solve the problem they asked the village’s children to play on the village roundabout and connected it to a pump that harnessed the energy created by the children. Result? Fresh water.

Don’t be put off by the number of pitfalls. Of course revolutionary ideas are risky, but nothing ever improves if nothing changes. 3-D thinking is essential.

So, a question you might be asking is: ‘Why do I need to know this?’ There are two primary reasons.

The first is that, when solving problems, it is good to have a healthy mix of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D ideas in most problem-solving situations; not just routine thinking (1-D) but also some more lateral 2-D and 3-D thinking. Note the use of the words ‘most situations’. If the washer on the tap has gone, the 1-D solution is to change the washer. You are probably not going to change the tap as well (though occasionally you might if it’s symptomatic of a bigger problem) or indeed the whole bathroom suite (though once or twice in a lifetime it might be the prompt to do what you need to do – the original suite is looking very old).

The second is that during the next step – selecting the best idea(s)/decision making – you will need to assess ‘risk’. 3-D ideas are clearly more risky than 2-D ideas, as are 2-D ideas to 1-D. But here’s some healthy contradiction: the biggest risk of all might be a 1-D idea. If you have a slow-moving product, an obvious 1-D solution might be to throw more money at advertising it to stimulate sales. But this might be a bad idea if the product has no market or is out of date.

The goal

We have already emphasised the importance of a clear goal. Don’t be afraid to go back and re-phrase the goal if you feel it isn’t a reflection of what the real problem is. If you find a lack of ideas coming forward in this step it might be because the goal is a passive rather than an active one (see previous ‘step’).

The ‘mental dimmer switch’

You can’t idle your way to insight. However, ‘forcing’ yourself to come up with solutions can be counter-productive. We are often at our least imaginative when under pressure. Consciously disengaging from a problem for a time can declutter the mind and help it return to a more relaxed state. Think about when you have your best ideas: in the bath, on a bike, out walking, in the toilet? Probably not when you are at work and really trying to solve problems. Slowing down the mind can lead to solutions that ‘hard-search’ thinking fails to find. It’s like the way you use a dimmer switch to control lights. Keep the switch on but don’t have the lights burning brightly all the time.

This doesn’t just apply to you individually. If the team has a particular problem and you are getting together to solve it, give advanced notice if you can. A few days of chewing over a problem subconsciously can work wonders.

What if?

A classic trigger for idea generation is the ‘What if?’ question. This could be in the form of a Miracle Question: ‘What if you woke up tomorrow and the problem had been solved? What would success look like?’ But it can also be stated in comparative terms. For example, ‘What if walking into the reception at work was like walking into a forest after it had rained?’ You can start making connections with smell, ambience, peace, colour, etc.

Finite to infinite

Keep playing with ideas. One of the challenges in this step is that we are immediately accepting of ideas as though they have come out of the mental oven fully baked. The fact is that most ideas, when they get put into practice, have advanced considerably from the time they were conceived. So, don’t accept the first idea as finite. Explore it, build on it and search for the infinite ideas that come from a first thought.

‘Piggy-back’ ideas

One technique for this is known as idea ‘piggy-backing’ – jumping on the back of ideas of others using ‘yes…and’ as a link between the first idea and your development of it rather than ‘yes…but’.

Don’t kill…

…the idea. You know how it feels when you hear ‘yes…but’ after you’ve made a suggestion. It’s hard to avoid the temptation to be an idea assassin, but one of the dangers here is that we stop having ideas ourselves if we enter early into critical mode when we are supposed to be free-thinking. This applies equally to groups and individuals. Save the analysis for step 4.

Not invented here

‘Yes…but’ often plays out as ‘yes, it’s an interesting idea, but the reasons we can’t do it here are…’. There’s an assumption made that because the idea isn’t familiar or routine, it won’t work. It may not, but that judgement is better made in the next step.

Information weight

Research tells us that in decision making we are inclined to give disproportionate weight to the first information we receive and we bias our judgement accordingly. It could be two things that are as different as a statistic or a first impression someone has of you.

A good example of information weight concerns who we speak to in connection with the decision. Imagine you are trying to deal with your awkward person. You seek advice from a colleague. He tells you to ‘give as good as you get’ and not be so accommodating. He says ‘toughen up’. It’s hard to forget that if it’s the first bit of advice you get, but it might be terrible advice – encouraging you to be confrontational rather than collaborative.

This process is sometimes known as ‘anchoring’. So, check that your decision isn’t being guided by the wrong anchor.

Preserving the status quo

So once upon a time product X was our best-seller. Now it’s not. But we want the good times back. So let’s keep pushing it. Unfortunately, in this instance a common problem in decision making is the preservation of the status quo – ‘the way we do it’ becomes a straitjacket when the very reason you have a problem is that life has moved on and you haven’t moved with it.

Confirmation bias

It’s common with first impressions, for example, that we are inclined to look out for all the things that confirm the first impression and ignore the things that don’t fit our initial view. Take the example of the awkward colleague once more. You’ve formed the impression that he or she is awkward. Have you checked to make sure that you are not just looking out for the continuing signs of awkwardness, possibly ignoring other times when his/her behaviour was fine? This is known as ‘confirmation bias’.

The people factor

Remember the 2008 financial crash? It’s widely believed that economists failed us because they forgot that economics is a social science – involving human behaviour – and not a branch of mathematics. People don’t always behave the way we think they will behave or the way a computer says we will behave. Being wrapped up in figures, process, risk, systems and procedures can mean we ignore ‘us’. The cooperation-type problems we looked at in step 2 will fail if we do not take into account human behaviour during this step.

Simple problems of coordination can turn into cooperation problems if you don’t talk to people. It’s no secret that on the many problem-solving courses run by this writer, 90% of the problems identified by participants relate to people, not to systems and procedures.

Hot or not?

Time can sometimes be the best problem solver. Just as we often solve problems that don’t really need solving or aren’t really problems anyway, the same applies to decision making. So the question here is: do you need to turn up the heat and get a decision made now (and often pressure is not conducive to good decision making) or can you chew over the decision for a while? False pressure is often ‘fool’s pressure’.

Must have, want to have, like to have

This technique is really useful if you have a lot of options and you’re finding it hard to see through the fog of unending possibilities. It allows for the quick elimination of possibilities that don’t meet set criteria. Say, for example, that you are buying a particular piece of software for the IT system. There are lots of options in the marketplace. It’s easy to be distracted by software that does a million things, most of which you don’t actually need.

You start by deciding what criteria your acquisition must meet. Not going above budget might be one of them, thereby immediately eliminating all of those possibilities that go above budget. The software must have certain features so that it is fit for purpose. It’s a bit like buying a car; someone who’s retired might not need GPS if all they need a car for is to pop to the shops. A second elimination – the want round – then further eliminates more possibilities. If necessary a third round – the like round – then eliminates more until you are left with one or very few possibilities.

Listen to yourself

Ok – it’s intuition really! Here are some reasons to use intuition combined with pitfalls:

• Intuition can be a valuable sixth sense that tells us if a particular direction is right or wrong.
• Henry Ford once said that if you think you’re right or you think you’re wrong, you probably are.
• With just a few options, intuition can steer us down the right path.
• Experience can improve intuition – good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

Whose decision?

So, what are the limits of your decision-making responsibility? Referring back to one of our earlier problems – the poor performing new recruit – do you need to refer to HR or can you sort out this problem yourself? The more control you have over acting out your decision, the more likely it is to succeed. In the next step you will find it useful to refer to the four-box model to help you do this. Is your decision a recommendation or something you can enact yourself?

No go

The ‘No go’ box comprises decisions where you are not free to act at all on your own initiative. It provides an important moral compass where decisions are likely to break morals and ethics or breach the values that your organisation holds. Decisions that compromise safety and legality also sit here.

Yes, then go

This is where permission has to be sought, usually from more senior people, to problem solve, make decisions, create, initiate, adapt, change, re-interpret or amend and then act. You need to factor in the benefits of taking the decision you want to take here because you have to influence others to give the green light. Have you/your team thought through the issues, explored the risks and the costs, and are you clear on the people issues? If you’ve been rigorous in step 4 then your capacity to secure agreement will be greater.

Go, then let know

This is where you are free to act on your initiative but you need to let others such as your manager know what you’re doing, how it’s going and what you’re learning. With approval comes the right to make mistakes (although these should be honest mistakes in the act of trying rather than those that breach box 1 rules). Not everything works as you planned it.

Go

Decisions that are to be acted on that can be made without securing the agreement of others and that don’t have to be accounted for sit in this box. This is the complete unfettered freedom you have in your job to do what you want, when you want and how you want. The freedom here includes freedom to make mistakes.

Pitfall: In our enthusiasm to enact a decision we might feel particularly empowered and assume automatically that the decision sits in the ‘Go’ box. Challenge the assumption.

Engagement

True engagement provides the necessary propulsion in this final step. Engagement comes from two factors – what the logical ‘head’ is saying and what the emotional ‘heart’ is feeling. As we have seen, decision making has a clear need to assess fully all the factors that lead us to make the best decision.

Effort

There aren’t many people who don’t want to do a good job, but equally not many give fully of themselves. Industrial psychologists talk of the ‘discretionary effort’ that resides within us. This is the difference between the minimum we can give of ourselves that enables us to get by and the maximum we can give that allows us to fully express our capabilities. We have a choice as to how much or how little of this discretionary effort we give. With 1-D solutions the minimum may be enough to get us through routine tasks. However, the challenge presented by 2-D and particularly 3-D solutions will mean you need to be prepared to give more of yourself.

Empathy

If it’s the people factors that are so important then it’s your ability to climb into other people’s worlds in all the steps – but particularly this one – that is a key variable in success or failure. Solving problems means new ideas. New ideas mean change. And change often means asking people to do things differently. As social pioneer William Beveridge once said:

‘The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar protein.’

Key point summary

• Don’t ignore the people issues – they are often the key variable in the success or failure of your decisions.
• What you think is attractive about a decision may be perceived differently by others. Consider all the issues, counter-arguments and losses that may be perceived by those affected.
• How far does your freedom to act on decisions extend? Don’t abuse your position.
• A great attitude makes all the difference!