How to master problem-solving - and why so many of us miss it?

“WE ARE IN TROUBLE. Our sales performance hasn’t met our targets. This is a serious problem that has prompted us to fire the under-performing sales team and hire top performers from the market. And I am sure you will support us during this tough period” thundered my friend – the CEO of a 500-employee organization.

If you have been associated with the corporate world for even a few years, nothing should surprise you about such episodes. Except that this was the second time in as many years that my friend had to resort to such a move.

I thought about this episode several times; there is no field of endeavor where problem solving isn’t required. If so, why do individuals, even the highly paid senior executives, struggle with finding solutions to problems or even worse, solve them so superficially? Why do we become indecisive at times? Why do some problems overwhelm us? After all, what is it about problems that leaves even the best, high and dry? And lastly, why do problems stress us out?

To answer these questions, let’s understand the whole concept of problem solution from a neurological perspective.

Right behind our forehead lies a part of our brain called prefrontal cortex (PFC) – a layer that plays the key role in problem solving. The PFC has the power to summon data from our old memories, form patterns, evaluate alternatives and find the solutions.

To provide an analogy, the PFC is equivalent to a CEO of a large organization with hundreds of thousands of employees. It defines the vision that drives the rest of the brain. Now here is the catch: while it can visualize all kinds of strategies and command all resources under its control like a CEO, the success of these strategies depends on the meticulous planning and flawless execution by multiple departments or layers in the brain underneath. In that sense, the success of the PFC depends heavily on the performance of the rest of the brain.

Such a dependence leads to several outcomes:

1. A demoralized workforce can do grievous damage and fail the best CEO strategy. Likewise, negative emotions and an unhappy disposition can severely handicap the functioning of the PFC.

1. A CEO’s true assets are the employees in the organization and a successful CEO learns to trust them for execution. The PFC’s true assets are the sub-units in the rest of the brain and the PFC functions best when it looks to them for solutions rather than constantly searching outside.

1. A successful CEO stays calm under pressure, creates conditions for the team to succeed and then gets out of the team’s way, leaving them to figure solutions out. Ditto for PFC; it functions best when it doesn’t force itself or the rest of the brain for a solution.

To summarize all this, the PFC functions optimally and generates the best possible solutions to problems when it:

1. Identifies the problem correctly
2. Creates a conducive environment for problem solution by
   1. maintaining a positive attitude
   2. staying calm
3. Allows the remaining units in the brain to use their inherent strengths by getting out of their way.

Regardless of whether they know the role of the pre-frontal cortex or not, all successful problem solvers understand the nuances of the brain and put them to good use.  Let’s study how we can use these characteristics of the PFC to effectively solve problems:

1. Identify the problem: Rather surprisingly, the most important reason why problems don’t get solved is also the simplest to fix: an inability to identify the correct problem. Like the CEO at the beginning of this article who made an implicit assumption that weak sales resulted from the incompetent sales team, most people assume the most visible effect of the problem (weak sales) to be the problem itself.To identify a problem correctly, we need to learn to ask the right questions, the most important of which is ”What is the real problem?”

 a. If a problem appears too obvious to be true, then often that must be so.

 b. Don’t assume the link between cause and effect too soon. Poor sales are not necessarily caused by a weak sales team alone. Could weak sales have been because of poor product definition, inappropriate market segmentation, a weak brand etc? Continue asking questions until all possibilities have been ruled out.

1. Maintains a positive attitude: Our brains are ruled by emotions. The neurology of our brains is such that instinctually, negative emotions will supersede logic. A negative brain will force the PFC to generate sub-optimal solutions. In short, our emotions are the equivalent of the tint of our glasses. If we wear red tinted glasses, everything will appear red, regardless of reality.

 Problem-solving necessitates observing reality without any prejudice. Since problem-solving inherently involves handling a negative state (problem), a positive attitude helps the PFC and the brain stay neutral.

 Several factors help us improve positivity: positive mental programming, positive association and good mentorship.

1. Staying calm: Imagine a soccer final. With the noise and frenzy, what’s the chance of hearing a voice mail from your loved one on your phone? This is exactly what happens when we are stressed. When under pressure, the PFC is unable to hear the subtle voices of wisdom and instincts from the deepest layers of the brain since these voices are always broadcast at a very low frequency inside the brain. Often, those voices are exactly the inputs required to create previously unknown associations and form new patterns to solve problems. For those voices to be heard, the brain has to stay calm and quiet.

A stressed PFC solves problems superficially using impulses from the emotional brain, whereas a calm PFC solves the same problems at root level using instincts from the instinctual brain.

        Mind relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation, over time, help enormously in calming down the PFC.

1. Trust team: Problem solving requires a healthy mix of analytical and creative skills. While PFC excels at analytical skills, the creative component is the forte of the deeper layers of the sub-conscious mind.

 Counter-intuitively, the ideal way for the PFC to solve problems is to stop fixing the problem, get out of the way and allow the sub-conscious brain to start working. The ways to achieve this are:

 a. Relax and defocus from the problem. Play with your kids/pets, take a walk, get a massage. All work and no play makes the PFC a dull boy.

 b. When the PFC is at rest and defocused from the problem (similar to a boss being on leave), the other parts of the brain get a remarkable sense of freedom. Old memories and impressions, patterns for predictive modeling, associations between current problem and past experiences and the use of inborn instincts leads to creation of previously unknown possibilities and concepts. The activation of this wisdom stored deep inside happens only when the PFC is calm, positive and de-focused from the problem.

 c. The PFC can now combine the creative solutions arising from this wisdom of the sub-conscious mind with its own analytical skills to arrive at definitive solutions to problems.

Clearly, the PFC cannot handle the problem-solution activity all by itself since the PFC is often involved in creating the problem in the first place. It is not without reason that the man who solved some of the toughest problems, Albert Einstein said ”Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them.”.

 Problem-solving is an acquired skill; it isn’t a talent that we are born with. Like every other skill, this skill improves with experience and application. Over time, the PFC’s of experienced problem solvers can use the wisdom of their brain and solve problems instantly.

Understanding ourselves and the functioning of our brain play a vital role in ensuring that our brain gets the perfect work out and stays fit for a long time. After all, problems are to the mind what a workout is to the muscles.

References:

If you want dig deeper into this subject, you might want to read “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock.

To further emotional states, please refer article: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/donald-trump-narendra-modi-elon-musk-why-so-raja-jamalamadaka?trk=pulse_spock-articles

 What are some of the other factors that impact problem solving that you have experienced? Did you use alternate approaches more effectively? Please share your experiences with me to help strengthen my PFC and sub-conscious mind. I look forward to your views.