Tweet

Problem Solving for Professionals

Written by: Julie Fleming-Brown

Article Overview: Effective problem-solving requires effective diagnosis of the problem, not just the symptoms. Identifying and challenging our assumptions and expectations is key to creating meaningful and lasting change, whether personal or professional. Each of us has the ability to do this. However, recognizing the frame that we use to perceive the world may be difficult simply because we’re so accustomed to our own assumptions and beliefs.

Problem Solving for Professionals

How do you solve problems? If you’re like most people, you look at what’s gone wrong, and you fix it. While that’s an effective strategy in the short-term, it’s really just correcting the symptom. Real problem-solving requires treating the conditions that allowed the problem to arise in the first place, thus resolving the problem permanently.

For example, suppose you’ve decided that your marketing isn’t producing the results you want. You assume that the amount of your effort will determine your results: more is better. Based on that assumption, the simple solution would be to increase the marketing efforts you’re making now, so you attend two networking events a month, arrange to take a potential client to lunch twice a week rather than just once, and so on. And that might help you to develop more business – but it also might not, or you might not devote the time to following through on your plans.

Instead, perhaps you might pause to evaluate the effectiveness of your current efforts and discover that every time you attend a particular networking meeting, you walk away with valuable new contacts that bring in business 40% of the time. Rather than increasing your efforts in marketing generally, perhaps it would make sense to deepen your contacts within that group, perhaps dropping another group altogether. To find that solution, though, you’d have to examine your assumption that more efforts leads to better results.

Or suppose you decide that you want to communicate more effectively with your assistant to correct a problem that’s developed in which he or she doesn’t deliver things you request “ASAP” in what you consider to be a timely manner. You conclude that your assistant doesn’t pay attention when you say ASAP, so you tailor your solution to that issue. You might emphasize that you need the work “ASAP, really, as soon you can get it done.” You might express disappointment when work isn’t delivered as quickly as you’d hoped. You might even sit down with your assistant and explain the problem and ask how the two of you might solve it together. But the problem might well continue until you discover that when you say ASAP, your assistant interprets that to mean “as soon as conveniently possible” rather than “drop everything and do this now.”

Or perhaps the real issue is that you act as if you were working in an emergency room, running from crisis to crisis so that everything is on an ASAP basis, which means that nothing is a priority. A shift in your perspective is the only thing that will truly solve the problem here.

What we’re discussing here is single-loop learning, in which we tinker with our strategies in reaction to our results, as compared with double-loop learning, in which we examine the assumptions and perspectives that underlie the problem and, if needed, create new assumptions and perspectives to support a new set of strategies to solve the problem permanently. The task is to stop climbing the same tree harder, faster, or smarter and instead to pause and ask whether this is the tree to be climbing at all and if so, why.

Effective problem-solving requires effective diagnosis of the problem, not just the symptoms. Identifying and challenging our assumptions and expectations is key to creating meaningful and lasting change, whether personal or professional. Each of us has the ability to do this. However, recognizing the frame that we use to perceive the world may be difficult simply because we’re so accustomed to our own assumptions and beliefs.

Consider this Albert Einstein quotation: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” When solving a critical problem, then, consider how to get input from someone who isn’t predisposed to seeing your situation in the same way that you do: colleagues, a mentor, or a professional coach. Whatever approach you use, your efficiency (and indeed, your professional success) requires that you be ruthless about getting to the root of the problem.

Related Articles
  Innovation or problem solving? is a great question to ask often
  THOUGHT SHOWERING (BRAINSTORMING)
  Problem or Not the Problem?
  10 Key Problem Solving Tips For Managers
  5 Skills Critical to a Sales Professional’s Success in Today’s economy: Equipping Your Team to Succeed

Article Tags: assumption, disappointment, marketing efforts, networking events, pay attention, simple solution, t pay, timely manner, would make sense



Related Forum Posts
What? - Problem fixed. Never mind!
Check References! - Make sure you always check references before hiring a consultant to help you out! Also make sure that they have experience in your field? If you're a software company have they ever raised $ for software firms before? Professionals should have no problem giving a list of references that you can call on.
How to get financed - We looked at doing the same thing. Problem is you own the truck out-rite, so most require a add on to your title or release of title to them for liability should you default. Contact Kevin at RV Lending, he assisted us with our stacker transporter, pretty easy to deal with and straight up with the answers before you give all you personal information. Good luck
Getting financed for conversion on an older truck - We looked at doing the same thing. Problem is you own the truck out-rite, so most require an add on to your title or release of title to them for liability should you default. Contact Kevin at RV Lending, he assisted us with our stacker transporter, pretty easy to deal with and straight up with the answers before you give all you personal information. Good luck
Keyboards and coke - [quote:3b3y75yj]The hardest part is raising the plastic piece above the keyboard without breaking it [/quote:3b3y75yj] Problem is I'm not very "ept" when it comes to mechanical stuff, even as simple as this appears to be. I'm sure if I tried anything like that I'd break something! Oh, well, it's now a glorified DVD viewer and message board reader. Everything works as long as I've got it bookmarked... I just can't type anything! Thank goodness for two computers...


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Five Daily Marketing Habits to Increase Sales

Presenting Yourself With Impact at Work

The Neglected Art of Receiving

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.