When I was in high school, the movie “Karate Kid” was very popular. In that movie, there was the iconic character of Mr. Miyagi who in one of the movie’s most memorable scenes was asking his pupil Daniel to put wax on his car with a “Wax on” motion and then “Wax off”. Daniel couldn’t understand what this was about and suspected he was being taken advantage of. Only later in the story, it became clear that the repeated motions were getting Daniel ready to block an opponent’s strikes. Sometimes in life, a very simple concept repeated again and again has tremendous power that is not initially apparent.
When working with corporate entrepreneurs we use such a repeating concept which has proven itself as very powerful. The first question we always ask is “What problem are you trying to solve?” with regards to an innovative idea or an idea involving technology deployment. This is a simple but very powerful question.?
The first benefit it brings is allowing us to better understand the innovative idea. Usually, innovative ideas in their early stages are very abstract, difficult to explain without a lot of hand waving and even more difficult to understand without spending a lot of time and effort which are at a premium in a busy corporate environment.
The second benefit is that it forces entrepreneurs to examine the most basic reason underlying their ideas. It also sets them up to be able to verify that this problem is real and not a figment of their imagination. Creative people tend to think in certain patterns that are very solution-driven. Being asked about a problem often causes them to get a bit confused which is a good thing because confusion is often an early sign of new realizations. This confusion manifests through a few recurring patterns we see in the most common answers that demonstrate how critical this question is in the beginning of every conversation about an innovative venture or the deployment of startup technologies. Following are the three most common patterns. When working with corporate entrepreneurs look for these patterns and use the technique described for each one in order to transform them into effective problem statements.
- Over abstraction - The problem is often too high level as it tries to grasp as broad a scope as possible in order to demonstrate its high value if solved. A few examples would include “We have a severe knowledge retention problem with our maintenance teams” and “Our data analysis processes are not efficient”. Paradoxically, such problem statements actually lower the chances that an innovative idea will be successful. This is because by making such broad and non-specific statements we are actually watering down the specific value of a solution and making the project seem much larger than it has to be. For example, using augmented reality technology to address knowledge transfer issues means thousands of procedures, some of which are undocumented have to be programmed into the technology and maintenance teams obligated to use the technology through painful change management practices. If, in contrast, we apply Pareto’s law to the problem and focus on the most disruptive malfunctions that cause the most downtime due to the delay of waiting for a maintenance expert who knows how to fix the issue, we can turn this into a much more focused problem statement. As a result, a high-value project that is much simpler and cheaper can be planned as a first stage with ever-increasing circles of broader deployment with decreasing ROI optionally following it rather than the original all-or-nothing approach.
- Solution-oriented - This pattern manifests as a problem statement that claims that the lack of the proposed solution is the problem, for example, “The problem is that our analysis processes do not have AI capabilities”. Naturally, we have to break the circular argument here that says “We should apply solution A because the problem is that solution A is lacking”. We do this by asking a simple follow-up question: “Why do we need the AI solution in the analysis process? What problem arises today due to the lack of an AI-based solution? The funny thing is that oftentimes, we realize after distilling the most painful part of the problem that the advanced option (AI in this case) is unnecessary. Here’s a real-world example that is very down to earth. I was helping a friend who runs a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide a certain population with basic needs for households (Electrical appliances, furniture, etc) that are donated by the broader population. They have a storage warehouse and the problem he gave me initially was: “My problem is that I don’t have an inventory management system”. When asked about the problem we realized that since the storage is located remotely his precise problem is that when asked about the availability of items he cannot provide an answer without physically visiting the warehouse. I asked what the most commonly requested items were and he immediately responded with “Stoves, Washing machines and refrigerators”. Since these are all very large items we eventually reached a good enough solution based on an installed camera that can be accessed remotely and thus visually identify whether such items are available. The bottom line is that if we start with a certain solution in mind then we are limiting our thought process and being questioned about a specific problem breaks this pattern.
- Unfounded vision - This pattern is a relative of the previous one and is commonly found with entrepreneurs who see themselves as delivering a visionary message to a certain target audience. The challenge is that entrepreneurs tend to get very excited about a certain vision that is totally unfounded at that point. For example, “The problem is that farmers aren’t using drone technology” as a prerequisite for proposing a drone-based solution that the company will sell to farmers. We can see that the entrepreneur started with a certain vision and then phrased the problem as a lack of this vision being followed. The way we break this pattern is by asking a practical question - “What problem would drone technology solve for farmers? What problem for farmers is so painful that they would be willing to go through the barrier of discomfort in applying this technology to their activities?”. This is a way of breaking the pattern and turning it into an effective problem statement.
“What problem are you trying to solve?” is a very powerful question when talking with entrepreneurs about their innovative ideas. If you are able to master this question and the accompanying techniques for breaking the thought-limiting patterns as the ones mentioned above, you will be making great strides in your ability to understand innovative ideas in their early stages and increase their chances of making progress.
If you wish to learn more about how this is done, click below to schedule a complimentary meeting https://www.spyre.group/advisorymeeting .
