Do you have problems? (Who doesn't?)

Then, these ideas are for you!

A complex problem has no easy or ready answers. It could be one of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) of the UN, or it could be a new job opportunity for you or an unexpected personal mishap. It is new and something you have never faced before.

This article (link below) proposes six novel approaches to solving such problems. Reading more and repeatedly, I found meaning and values beyond the obvious. This summary relates them to themes and practices that you will find familiar and connect to.

The key challenge in every complex problem is information which is incomplete, unreliable or scarce. You don’t know what to do because no solution exists or works for you. Thus, you need new methods to find or create solutions.

For your convenience, the approaches have been identified by their respective keywords below.

CURIOSITY. The first task is to look at the problem in the eye and ask questions such as ‘Why is this so?’. Being curious sends us on a ‘mission of discovery’ and clarifies doubts as we begin to accept new information. This attitude ties in neatly with Openness to Experience, a Big-Five personality trait due to which one is naturally capable of receiving ideas that are different. Curiosity is the engine of creativity because it sparks imagination and directs fresh thinking.

AMBIGUITY. If you have heard of Schrodinger’s cat, it would be easier to understand ambiguity. Whether the cat is dead or alive depends on when you are looking at it. Similarly, in the VUCA model, ambiguity is a foggy information space where nothing is clear to you. Ambiguity is one of the reasons for curiosity; asking questions may be the easiest way to dispel the fog. Knowledge is not only provisional and incomplete (Eric Angner) but also the imperfect opinion that may be the basis of ambiguity and ignorance. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (WEFFJR) ranks cognitive flexibility as one of its top ten skills for employment and business – perhaps, that is an implicit recognition of ambiguity as a natural phenomenon.

DRAGONFLY. You may have heard of the Rig Veda quotation (1.89.1), ‘Let noble thoughts come to me from all directions.’ While the statement’s reference to all directions made me feel like a Hubble telescope, its emphasis on ‘noble’ has perplexed me for over four decades. If I screened out anything before receiving it, wouldn’t it be prejudice? Would it not reduce my awareness and, thus, adulterate my capability to find a solution? The 360 degree vision of the dragonfly offers more reach than the nobility filter. What I receive reiterates the significance of the Openness to Experience trait and confirms that my curiosity is the most powerful mindset for me, the problem solver.

OCCURRENT. The reliance on events to understand problems suggests that we should observe the evidence and learn from history. By connecting the dots, one can see similarities and effects, trends and patterns, and draw workable solutions, while conjecture and imagination may produce only debate and friction without a factual basis. The implied emphasis on experiment and prototyping paves the road to consensual thinking and conviction faster than ‘what-if’ analyses and scenarios. Learning from error is the smartest way to model a problem because ‘mistakes are the portals of discovery’ (James Joyce).

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE. Individuals are smarter when working together. You see this in ants (the hill), lions (pride), bees and wasps (the hive), wolves and hyenas (the pack), locusts (the swarm), birds (murmuration), fish (school), penguins and, of course, humans (diverse teams). Individuals and groups of individuals huddle together in communities, caucuses, cartels, guilds, committees, senates and parliaments. Even Isaac Newton had acknowledged other scientists’ findings as his inputs saying ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.’ By using others’ wisdom, you avoid remaking the wheel; instead, you can design the problem, faster. Thus, pooling others’ experience helps to understand and solve a problem faster than when alone.

SHOW & TELL. A picture is worth a thousand words; an animation or video is even more powerful. Using graphs, workflow charts, causal loops, fishbone diagrams, post-its, stories and case studies, infographics and pictograms, and slide presentations, a child could understand quantum theories faster than a physics graduate from his textbook. A sensory presentation appeals to the emotions because it cuts across language, cultural, epistemic and semantic hurdles. And we now have social media to carry our message further and collate many perspectives to meld and implement the simpler solution.

By asking questions, we become more aware and ready to design an appropriate solution. By receiving and using others’ perspectives and experiences without prejudice, we reduce the ambiguity of the problem for ourselves. By using sensory messages and communication tools, we can seek consensus from others to make and execute the solutions.

The WEFFJR finds complex problem-solving as more important than cognitive flexibility in its skills for the future. Knowing more of the problem reduces its apparent complexity and makes it easier to find solutions. A problem-centric mindset is more likely to generate value than a mindset of making decisions but not beyond. It is second nature to entrepreneurs because a problem solved may produce or earn cash for the enterprise.

The next challenge is to design a checklist, a process and a workflow chart to solve personal problems by asking questions to understood more, by depending on others’ wisdom and by presenting sensorially.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/six-problem-solving-mindsets-for-very-uncertain-times