10 things to know about problem solving

Recently I was invited by my friend Joe Trendowski to speak at an innovation competition hosted by Valparaiso University.

It was a lot of fun, and as I told everyone who so politely listened to me last night, I’m sharing it here now, since I’d like to believe it wasn’t just relevant right then.

Here’s the typed version. It’s a little more concise than my spoken version. Ha!

“In my life so far I’ve been accountable for solving a lot of different problems, and I feel like I’ve learned a few useful things about that, mostly from pain but also hyper-caffeination. Really, most of the GOOD things I’ve learned about problem solving I attribute to my marriage and children.

So, here are 10 things I think you should know about solving problems:

1. You don’t always have to come up with 10 ideas, but it’s a VERY good system

I’ve used the 10 ideas system for nearly a decade and it has been incredibly helpful. I’ve taught other people to do this for me when they have something they might want, or I encourage them to have 10 ideas for ways we can make something better when it feels stagnant.

What I’ve seen very commonly is that your first 3 or 4 ideas are bad. You grab them out of the air, they’re on the tip of your tongue; you haven’t thought very deeply about them, usually.

Ideas 5-7 are usually much better, you’ve had to run out of the easiest things to reach for and really start to consider WHY the ideas you’re coming up with are helpful. You’re considering more parts of the issue, more reasons why your ideas might cause other issues.

Ideas 8-9 are usually pretty hard, especially for people like me. I’m starting to feel the strain of coming up with things that could be actually helpful, things that are better than the other ideas. My brain is reaching deep for connections, for solutions it hasn’t used up yet.

Idea 10 is usually exhausting. Sometimes I throw in the towel and stick any old idea on there, but sometimes it’s the diamond of the bunch.

No matter which ones are good or bad, you now have 10 ideas for how to solve the issue, and you’ve realized a few crucial things, which come up in my later points.

2. We will never get it EXACTLY right - we will always shoot the arrow and miss

If you believe that we have a God who is our creator, you know that we live in a world that cannot yet be perfect.

That means the only thing we will ever get exactly right is accepting Him as our savior. He is the only “Perfect” that there is.

We can call ourselves “perfectionists” all we want, and it’s admirable (to a degree) to constantly be searching for as close to perfect as is possible. But...

We may as well take the humble pie now and remember that there is no EXACTLY RIGHT solution for anything else, there is only the best we can do at the time.

3. Problems can be defined as “Using resources in ways that are not good”

How many times have you heard someone say “We have a problem”? All the time right?

If you’ve ever been to the comments section of a YouTube video, you know that problems are practically all we have, and everyone knows what they are!

So, how about these examples of problems?

• The problem is that we’re feeding the poor.
• The problem is that God gives us too much.
• The problem is that too many people have joy and peace in their hearts.

I hope it’s clear that I’m being facetious.

My point is that some things do need solutions, but some things are supposed to take a our time and resources.

There is GOOD we have to do, we need to solve other problems so that we can.

4. As people who fear God, our solutions will inevitably clash with others who do not (let alone others who DO)

When I said “The problem is that we feed the poor” I pointed out that I was being facetious, though I hope that would be obvious, because that’s obviously something good.

But the time WILL come when you say something you think we should invest in, which is obviously good, and someone will disagree with you.

5. Stop saying “the problem is...”

I recently wrote an article on 5 reasons to stop using this phrase, and the dangerous mentality it brings, so I won’t go into that very deeply now, but you can read that article here if you want (probably a 5 minute read)

Most significantly, this phrase promotes a 1 solution mentality, and shuts off deep thinking. But problems are almost always more complicated than they seem, and we need to dig deeper into what is causing the problems we’re trying to tackle.

If we say “The problem is” we isolate the issue to a single thing, and if we come up with a solution for that single thing and then implement that solution, you may (probably) CAUSE A NEW PROBLEM.

Instead of letting this lead to “paralysis by analysis”, we can just admit that we don’t know what we don’t know, and implement something that includes a plan to circle back around and dig deeper to improve the solution in the future.

6. Sometimes you have to solve something RIGHT NOW and that’s OK

Paramedics and firefighters and police and parents of small children rarely have time in the moment to dig deeply into a situation, during the situation.

Someone is burning.

A child is choking.

People are being shot at.

These issues must be solved in moments of gut instinct, there is no time.

So, do so. Don’t be paralyzed into waiting during a crisis. ACT, even if you may act poorly.

But PLEASE don’t forget to circle back in the future to improve on what happened.

Dig deeper.

7. The purpose of solving problems is to get human TIME and ENERGY back, so we can use them on other things

Whether you solve a big problem for a few people or a little problem for a lot of people, you’re making a HUGE contribution in getting back human time and energy.

If you find a way to reduce the time something takes by 6 minutes each for a hundred people, you’ve recaptured 10 human hours.

If you save 5 hours each for only 2 people, you’ve still recaptured 10 human hours.

With that new time and energy, we can do OTHER things, better things.

Because we have GOOD work to do.

8. There ARE problems, and they NEED solved

We still have people in the world, maybe in our city, who are hungry, thirsty, and unsheltered. Not one person in the world is unloved, but there are billions who don’t KNOW they are loved.

Maybe your solution is just one of those few minute savers, and that’s ok.

Now we have a few more minutes to do good work, to solve other things.

No solution is too small.

9. Create problem solving tools and structures

Problem solving can be applied to problem solving. (Fascinating, I know)

Create structures for solving problems - speed up the time it takes for you to come up with solutions. If you think you see a problem, have 10 ideas. Right away, you’re digging deeper and coming up with multiple potential improvements. Plus, creating ideas leads you to asking other questions, like “Does that idea already exist? Is someone else already doing this?”

Then ASK your ideas and your questions! Don’t forget that people have been solving problems for a long time, and there are information and tools out there for you to use. GTS - Google That Shit.

Don’t be afraid or intimidated because someone else might have already come up with something. People have come up with a LOT of structures for solving a lot of issues, perhaps you just need to find their tools and participate with them!

So think about what you need, search for those tools and structures before you build your own, and if you find what someone else has built, thank them and use the tools!

10. REVISIT your old solutions!

Things break, and things get old, and we as people grow, and some needs change.

The world moves on around good solutions and makes them become poor ones.

We as people grow and come up with new ideas, better ideas, and we have more time and resources to use.

If it can’t ever be perfect, it can always be improved.

Come back later. Dig a little deeper.

OK!

That’s what I’ve learned so far that I felt might help you along your own journeys in problem solving.

I wish you the best of luck in everything you put your time and energy towards, and I’m very excited to see what ways you come up with to help get some time and energy back for the rest of us.