What's Your Problem?
Part One - Solve the Right Problem
What if we could get better at solving the RIGHT problems?
This book introduces a skill called “reframing” and offers the rapid reframing method to tackle problems in almost any context.
The way you frame a problem determines which solutions you come up with.
By shifting the way you see the problem - that is, by reframing it - you can sometimes find radically better solutions.
Sometimes, to solve a hard problem, you have to stop looking for solutions to it. Instead, you must turn your attention to the problem itself - not just to analyse it, but to shift the way you frame it.
Chapter One - Reframing Explained
The success in problem-solving needs optimism, but also the ability to take aim at the right problem.
Reframing is not the same as the problem analysis and trying to understand all the factors causing the problem (“Why is the elevator slow?”)
Reframing is not about the details, but about the big picture and having the ability to consider situations from multiple perspectives (“Is the speed of the elevator the right thing to focus on?”)
Reframing is not about finding a real problem; it’s about finding a better problem to solve.
There are two different ways of reframing a problem:
Exploring the frame: when you delve deeper into the original problem statement. It’s similar to the analysis but you focus on overlooked aspects of the situation that might make difference. Often exploring approach is linked to technical breakthroughs.
Breaking the frame: when you step away completely from the initial framing of the problem. Here, it is more about making a mental breakthrough, seeing what is there but reinterpreting what it means. It depends on our ability to question our beliefs and challenge our assumptions - about others and about ourselves.
Reframing helps to create multiple options. Having multiple options can improve the quality of your decisions - provided those options are genuinely different.
Your career can benefit from reframing, as can our society as a whole.
Part Two - How to Reframe
Chapter 2 - Getting Ready to Reframe
Two extreme approaches to problem-solving:
1. Jumping to action too soon
2. Paralysis by analysis
There is a better alternative:
3. Reframing process
Step 1 - Frame. What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?
Step 2 - Reframe. What are other potential alternative framings?
Look outside the frame: What are we missing?
Rethink the goal: Is there a better objective to pursue?
Examine bright spots: Where is the problem not?
Look in the mirror: What is my/our role in creating this problem?
Take their perspective: What is their problem?
Step 3 - Move forward. We close the loop and switch back into action mode.
Tools for reframing: checklist and reframing canvas.
Who to involve? Get other people involved as soon as possible. Start in groups of three rather than two.
For better effect, involve outsiders. Why? The innovation often comes not from studying your customers but from studying people who aren’t your customers. When customers focus too hard on understanding and serving the needs of their existing customers, they inadvertently make their products less useful for noncustomers, creating an opening for competitors to move in.
Getting Ready to Reframe
When you train on reframing, pick two problems, from different areas: for example, a work-related problem and a problem from your personal life.
Pick problems that are not too basic - ideally, people-related problems. Reframing is particularly potent when it comes to “fuzzy” problems such as leadership, peer relationships, parenting, or even self-management. Pick problems you feel less comfortable with, for example:
situations you don’t handle well.
difficult relationships
managing yourself
Pick the problems that you’ve tried to solve before: when they have resisted multiple attempts to solve them, it’s a sign they could benefit from reframing.
Chapter 3 - Frame the Problem
Before you can reframe a problem, you first have to frame it.
Write Down a Problem Statement
Always start by asking what a problem is.
Create a short problem statement, writing down a problem as a full sentence.
Draw a stakeholder map next to the statement that lists the people who are involved in the problem.
Write it down fast.
Use full sentences.
Keep it short.
It slows things down a bit, preventing from jumping to a solution too soon.
It forces you to be specific
It creates mental distance
It gives advisers more to work with
It creates an anchor for the discussion
It creates a paper trail
Quickly Review Your Problem
There are three main types of problems, presenting specific challenges:
An ill-defined mess or pain point (Our sales are dropping. My career has stalled. Our industry is in decline. My sister is on a bad path)
pain points often cause people to jump to solutions, even those that have a dubious logic:
Our new product isn’t selling > We need to invest more in marketing
Survey has shown 74% of the stuff are disengaged > Let’s communicate our corporate purpose better
Our employees are resisting the reorganisation efforts > we need to roll out some training so that they can learn to (do as they are told) embrace change
We fight all the time > Let’s have a baby to calm things down
A goal we do not know how to reach (We want to become a market leader in X. How do I find a long-term romantic partner?)
Goals don’t necessarily have a clear starting point. All you know is that your current behaviour won’t suffice.
To solve a goal-driven problem, you need to identify opportunities.
A solution someone fell in love with (We should build an app! I am dreaming of starting a business that sells Italian ice cream. I saw this cool website where employees can share their ideas - we should get one of those)
Sometimes people fall in love with an idea without evidence that the solution solves a real-world problem: a solution in search of a problem.
In another variation, the solution is disguised as a problem.
Questions to ask when reviewing the problem:
Is the statement true?
How do we know it is true?
Could it be incorrect?
Are there simple self-imposed limitations? Are we putting constraints on the solution that aren’t necessarily real? For example, does the money need to come from our budget > reframe: where can we find some money for this project?
Is a solution “baked into” the problem framing?
Example: “we have not empowered enough female leaders to become effective and visible role models”. Instead of asking, how do we help women become role models, we can ask: Are there other things at play? How about our promotion process? How about informal connections? Do women get less exposure to senior decision makers?
Is the problem clear?
Example: “The problem is that we need to improve profitability of new client acquisition.” This is a goal written as a problem. Here, the shift is needed from their problem to identifying a problem that clients care about.
Alternatives are either to rethink the goal OR to examine bright spots.
With whom is the problem located?
Read the full statement of the problem: does it contain the words we, me, they that locate the problem? Or does the problem owner take some responsibility? Does the statement relegates the problem to higher powers? Or, like in the most severe cases, there is no recognisable human agency in the statement: “The problem is that our company’s culture is too rigid.”
Question your own role in creating the problem.
Are there any strong emotions?
Always dig into emotionally charged words in the problem statements - they indicate that you’ll struggle to solve the problem on a logical or factual level alone.
Assumptions that other people are stupid, selfish, lazy or uncaring always deserve a second, deeper look/
Are there any false trade-offs?
Poorly framed trade offs are classic pitfalls for decision makers. The presence of multiple options creates the illusion of completeness and freedom of choice, even as the options presented may leave out much better alternatives.
Creative thinkers need to push back on such trade-offs. Instead of simply picking up the least painful option, explore the issue deeper and generate a new, superior option.
Example of the out-of-the-box thinking (literally): The Royal Palms - a shuffleboard club in Brooklyn. The difficult choice - should they serve food on premises? Serving food is a huge hassle. Instead an either-or choice, the founders reframed the problem: how can we get the benefits of serving food without the hassle that comes with it? And they found a brilliant solution: the club has an opening into a garage where different food trucks are parked every night.
Save the Details for Later
Although vagueness is the enemy of change, if you are too quick to focus on the specifics, there is a risk that you will get lost in the details, and forget to question the overarching framing of the problem.
Chapter 4 - Look Outside the Frame
For each problem, remember to look outside the frame:
Don’t get caught with visible details
Think about what might be missing from your current framing of the problem
Story to start with: The New York - Le Havre Problem
It illustrates the danger of framing the problem too narrowly: everything within the frame is carefully scrutinised. Everything outside the frame receives zero attention.
The strategy: look outside the frame before you dive in.
Mentally zoom out and ask, What’s missing from the current problem statement? Are there elements we’re not considering? Is there anything outside the frame we’re not paying attention to?
The four tactics that can prevent you from framing the problem too narrowly:
Look beyond your own expertise (remember “the law of the instrument”: “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding”.
Example: company worried about improving the market’s perception of the company’s stock price. The core team with financial expertise focused on financial metrics, while an outsider from HR asked: Who talks to the analysts? It turned out, none of the more junior leaders talking to analysts received appropriate training. Important: let outsiders into your reframing exercise!
What is your favourite “hammer”, the type of solution you’re good at applying?
What type of problem does your hummer match?
What if the problem was not such a problem? What else could it be?
Look to prior events.
What happened the last time one of our employees tried to innovate?
Which solutions did our client try to apply before coming to us?
Look for hidden influences
Are there stakeholders whose influence you’re missing?
Are there high-level, systematic factors at play that influence the people involved?
Look for non obvious aspects of the situation
Are there non obvious aspects fo the problem that you could look into?
Do you have the data that can help you, or other things that are already available to us?
How is functional fixedness affecting you?
Chapter 5 - Rethink the Goal
Putting focus on the obstacle - how we get around it? - prevents us from questioning a more important thing: the goal we’re trying to reach.
Most goals enjoy a strange immunity from scrutiny.
Sometimes, the key to radical breakthroughs is not to analyse the obstacle but to ask a different set of questions:
Are we pursuing the right goal?
Is there a better goal to pursue?
The five tactics you can use:
Clarify the higher-level goals
There is rarely only one thing that we hope to gain from achieving a goal. Usually there are several different outcomes that matter to us.
Higher-level goals might also be means to an end (distal goals, a benefit of a benefit, positions vs interests, outputs vs outcomes)
Make sure to surface the higher-level goals by asking the following questions:
What is your goal?
Why is that goal important to you? Once you reach it, what will it help you achieve?
Besides that, are there other important things that reaching the goal will help you do?
Attention: people often don’t fully understand their own goals. Some people do not know how they will know when their problem is solved.
Challenge the logic
Does A necessarily lead to B?
Ask yourself the following questions:
Are our key assumptions actually true? Does the stated goal necessarily lead to the outcome we ultimately want?
Even if an assumption is generally true, are there special circumstances in which it doesn’t apply? Do we need to revise our thinking about how we win?
It’s really important to involve outsiders in this step
Ask if there are other ways to achieve the important goals
Story: find a new job for your boss
Question obvious goals too
Some goals are so good that it feels silly to question them. However the very obviousness of this goal can lead us astray
Examples:
long walk from the arrival gate to baggage claim - less time waiting at the conveyor
authenticity can trap us in our past, static self (the work of Herminia IBARRA)
personal happiness (work of Martin Seligman - a truly fulfilling life involves pursuing hard to reach goals and having a positive impact on others)
Examine the subgoals as well
Subgoals are intermediate steps that will lead us to a goal - they can also be incomplete, wrong, or in need of rethinking
Chapter 6 - Examine Bright Spots
Often, there are several ways to solve a problem. When it comes to people’s problems, we often default to seeking deep, historical explanations.
People often struggle with problems they’ve already solved.
Therefore one way is to pay attention to a different question: When do we NOT have a problem? Are there any bright spots?
Sometimes, bright spots can be located in surprising places. The following four questions can help you find them:
Have you already solved the problem at least once?
Look to the past. Was there even a time when the problem didn’t occur or was less severe than usual?
Seek unexceptional exceptions (i.e. close to your typical environment)
Examine REALLY positive exceptions, when the things were TRULY great.
When did the problem occur but not matter? The absence of bad effects of a problem is also a bright spot.
One example is errors. Mistake-free environment (e.g. in the hotel industry) is impossible. However, it’s not the mistake as such that makes a guest unhappy, but how the staff handles the mistake. Sometimes
Are there positive outliers in the group?
Even with really tough problems, given a large enough group, there are often some outliers who have found a way to cope with them. and they can be key in reframing the problem.
Who else deals with this type of problem?
by defining your problem is less detail, you make it easier to find bright spots elsewhere. Conceptualise the problem, finding a more abstract way to express it.
Can we broadcast the problem widely?
By sharing your problem widely and getting it in front of different groups, you increase the chances that someone will connect you to a bright spot you didn’t know about
sit down with people from other departments
describe the problem on your company’s intranet
talk to friends who walk in other industries
consider using social media to solicit input
Tips for broadcasting the problem
avoid technical language
provide lots of context
don’t over specify the solution
Chapter 7 - Look in the Mirror
What is my own role in creating this problem?
Explore your own contribution.
Is it possible that my (or our) own behaviour is, on some level, contributing to the problem
avoid the word “blame”, instead talk about the idea of contribution
Scale the problem down to your level
The insistence on a systems-level problem framing can lead to boil-the-ocean type efforts or paralysis through sheer fatalism.
Get an outside view of yourself
Internal self-awareness = “knowing yourself”, being deeply attuned to your own values, goals, thoughts, and feelings
External self-awareness = awareness of how OTHER people see you, understanding the impact of your behaviour on people you engage with.
Attention: having power makes people less capable of understanding others’ perspectives. Consider getting the help of neutral outsiders. Ask a friend how strangers might see you.
Accept the discomfort.
Be prepared for possibly unpleasant discoveries and a bit of pain to find the best way forward.
Chapter 8 - Take Their Perspective
Perspective-taking is about investing time in understanding other people to avoid wrong judgments about them and their actions.
Perspective-taking is more than empathy: you aim to understand another person’s context and worldview, not just his or her immediate emotions.
Three steps for perspective-taking:
Make sure it happens
Taking other people’s perspectives is an ACTIVE behavior. When you write down problems in the frame step, list the stakeholders and make sure you invest active effort in understanding each of them. Look for hidden stakeholders too.
Escape your own emotions
Effective perspective taking has two steps: anchoring and adjustment
Anchoring: how would I feel if I were in their situation?
Adjustment: how might they see things differently from me?
Maybe they know something that I don’t
Maybe they have bigger problems on their minds
Maybe they would prefer something different
The idea of emotional gravity well: just as a rocket needs to overcome gravity, we too have to rise beyond our emotions and viewpoints.
Don’t stop at the first answer
Examine people’s context, not just their emotions
Explicitly ask people to step away from their own perspective
Look for reasonable explanations
The principle of benevolent view: to start from the assumption that people are trying to do good things (or at least, not actively trying to pester you)
Could this have an innocent explanation?
Under what circumstances would I have done the same thing?
What if they aren’t stupid, careless, evil?
Could their behavior be in my best interest?
People’s behavior might make sense to them even if it’s problematic overall.
Chapter 9 - Move Forward
Test your problem before you test the solution.
Describe the problem to the stakeholders.
There is something powerful about hearing your problem described accurately.
Get outsiders to help you
Outsiders can be a great resource to help validate your problems, as they’re less emotionally attached to your preferred view of the problem (or solution). Example: a consulting firm that was embarrassed by being considered an “implementation” shop and wanted to rebrand as strategy consulting. But it’s what their clients actually loved about them.
Devise a hard test
When you’re validating a problem, you’re not just looking to find out whether it’s real. It’s also important to test whether the problem is big enough for your stakeholders to really want to solve it.
For example: what customers say is not always what they do. Ask customers to do down payment for a solution and see who stays really excited. in the process of hard test you may even find out customer segment that you have not thought about.
Consider “prototyping” the solution
In some cases, it is possible to test the problem and the solution at the same time. You don’t actually build a solution, but focus on finding ways to simulate the product and see if the Clients will buy it.
If you can test your ideas quickly and simply, don’t worry too much about problem diagnosis - just throw the stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
The importance of revisiting the problem
Schedule reframing after each round
Assign the reframing role to someone
create routines in your team
practice the mindset
Part Three - Overcome Resistance
Chapter 10 - Three Tactical Challenges
Complications and how to handle them
Choose which frame to focus on
Explore surprising framings
Look for simple framings (“Occam’s razor” approach)
Look for significant-if-true framings:
test the framing you don’t believe in
if the framing goes against your gut, don’t dismiss it before asking: if it were true, would this framing have a big impact?
Try to explore more than one framing
Identify unknown causes of a problem
sometimes, having a discovery-oriented conversation with just one person can be enough
Shut up and listen
Create a safe space for learning conversations
Seek out discomfort
Run a learning experiment to cast a new light on the situation
Overcome silo thinking
For complex problems, teams that are diverse outperform teams whose members are more similar to each other
Look for boundary spanners: people who understand but are not fully part of your world. they have both internal and external perspectives.
Ask for input, not solutions
Chapter 11 - When People Resist Reframing
There are two forms of client resistance: resistance to the process and denial
Resistance to the process
People don’t recognize the need for reframing
How to deal with it?
Show up with a well-designed, formal-looking framework. Formalized framework help create legitimacy with clients.
Educate them in advance: share the article “Are you solving the right problem?”
Share the slow elevator story
Tell stories from other clients
Tell stories from other clients
Frame the need according to their focus: e.g. promotion (play to win) vs prevention (play not to lose)
Manage the emotions of the process. Clients may say they don’t have time, but often, it’s about their emotions.
Closure-avoidant people dislike having to move forward early, even it’s just a small step.
Closure-seeking people find it unusual to have to keep more than one potential problem in mind.
Accept frustration. It’s an unavoidable part of problem-solving, and it’s better to have it now than later after having run in the wrong direction or doing nothing at all.
Invite outsiders
Gather problem statements in advance
Do it later if you can’t get the client to explore the problem upfront
Denial
People embrace the process yet reject the specific diagnosis you arrive at
We often fall in love with problem statements that allow us not to change:
the framing would force you to face up to an unpleasant truth
the framing points you to a solution you want to avoid
the framing runs counter to other incentives at play: “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”
First, ask yourself: Could I be wrong?
Look outside the frame
rethink the goal
look at the mirror
Let data do the talking
Embrace their logic and then find the weak point
Prepare two solutions: demanded by the client and a backup that actually works
Let them fail once
Win the next battle instead (e.g. if you are really keen on a big idea but your client is risk-averse, try with small wins first; focus on maintaining the relationship