Walk the Week - A Pothole in the Runway

We had a bizarre experience flying out of Gatwick to France a week or so ago. We had been told there was the usual air traffic control strike in France so we would have to wait for a flight slot. However, we were soon under way and taxied out to the main runway – and then stopped. Just where the engines normally increase their speed, and the plane accelerates down the runway. After 10 minutes or so it was obvious something was wrong as nothing was taking off or landing, and we were standing still. 

Then the captain finally came on the intercom. He apologised and said that during a routine inspection the airport had found of all things a pothole in the runway! They were now busy fixing it. He said he had never experienced this in 17 years of flying. We had to go off the runway where the engines could be turned off to save fuel – and eventually we got underway – now a lot later.

What it made me think about, especially in these rather troubled times, is that in professional life, in the business world, not everything is going to always go smoothly as planned. I can remember several critical deals in private practice and industry that almost didn’t sign because of one problem or another. A last minute procurement issue almost wrecked one public sector deal. An eleventh hour price reduction request from a private sector company nearly destroyed another. And these were both transaction that had been in negotiation in one form or another for around a year. In each case we found a solution and the deals were concluded.

It is not the fact that there will be issues and problems – it is almost inevitable and a fact of life. Of course, the scale of challenges varies and we are now living in unprecedented times. However as always it is not the problem that is really the issue. It is rather how we as business people and professionals react and seek to solve the difficulties we encounter.

Winston Churchill had an innovative approach to problem solving – and he surely had enough challenges saving the western world as we know it. He talked about corkscrew thinkers, ….. referring to individuals who possess creative problem-solving, initiative, leadership and emotional intelligence skills. Individuals who are able to look at problems in the world and see game-changing, innovative solutions. See this Guardian article Corkscrew thinking won the war. Here's how to use it in business.

It goes on to comment that By contrast our education system, which was designed in response to an industrialised Britain, is one that requires and promotes standardisation Many students today believe all you need to be successful is to reach an answer that has been predetermined as correct.

There is actually quite a lot of advice and literature about innovative problem solving – see this article The Basics of Creative Problem Solving – CPS which comments: 

Creative ideas do not suddenly appear in people’s minds for no apparent reason. Rather, they are the result of trying to solve a specific problem or to achieve a particular goal. Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity were not sudden inspirations. Rather they were the result of a huge amount of mental problem solving trying to close a discrepancy between the laws of physics and the laws of electromagnetism as they were understood at the time.  It then proposes a framework for creative solutions to problems.

See also this article on Creative Problem Solving which cites the example of James Dyson being fed up with bags in vacuum cleaners leaking or breaking, covering you in dust, so While many companies focused on developing a better vacuum cleaner filter, he realized that he had to think differently and find a more creative solution. So, he devised a revolutionary way to separate the dirt from the air, and invented the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner.

I also like this Harvard Business Review article on “disruptive innovation” The 4 Types of Innovation and the Problems They Solve. This proposes an “Innovation Matrix” and also emphasises flexibility and creativity commenting:

There is no one “true” path to innovation.

Yet all too often, organizations act as if there is. They lock themselves into one type of strategy and say, “This is how we innovate.” It works for a while, but eventually it catches up with them. They find themselves locked into a set of solutions that don’t fit the problems they need to solve. Essentially, they become square-peg companies in a round-hole world and lose relevance.

As Albert Einstein said To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Or as Richard Branson advises Learn to use your brain power. Critical thinking is the key to creative problem solving in business.

And above all we have to be positive and fix the pothole and also look for opportunities in our professional and working lives – returning to Winston Churchill for the last word in two quotes Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions and The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.