How much time, money, energy, etc. do you waste by solving the wrong problems ? What if you could get better at solving the right problems ? What's your Problem by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg is one of the best books I have read on the subject of solving problems. He asserts, that it is critical that we pay attention to how we frame problems. If we misframe problems, we may be at risk of coming up with a solution to the wrong problem (i.e. a wrong solution) and wasting tremendous amount of time, money and energy or even worst, creating additional problems that may be even tougher to solve later on. 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. A personal example  I remember when our son started kind...

The objective of this post is to introduce the concept of lateral thinking and to share four simple and fun exercises for creative thinking. The post is based on Edward De Bono's work.  The lateral thinking model is based on his book The Mechanism of Mind: Understand how your mind works to maximise memory and creative potential , and  The four exercises are based on How to Have Creative Ideas: 62 Exercises to Develop the Mind . How thinking patterns are formed Imagine a bed of nails, except that instead of nails we use pins with blunt heads and we lay a thin plastic film on the heads covering the entire bed. Now imagine that we spray water on this surface. As you can imagine, because the film is laid on the pins loosely, water will start to collect in puddles. The puddles will form in arbitrary locations largely depending on luck. It is not hard to see, that the next time we spray water on the surface it will gravitate towards the existing puddles, making those larger....

Photo by  Lukas  from  Pexels Being effective at work is like a martial art . The difference between the novice and the master is often not the actual moves, nor the detailed sequence of their execution, but the efficiency, elegance, precision, and speed of delivery. There is no silver bullet , just radical common sense and a persistent drive to improve. It is also true, that the same outcome may be achieved more elegantly with a different set or sequence of steps. Take for example typing. If you use two fingers, you may spend years practicing and perfecting your technique, however you will likely never achieve the same level of speed and perfection as if you had learned to type with ten fingers, and had spent your time perfecting those moves. For most of my career I have worked in large matrix organizations. I have read and learned about work. I was trained. I have picked up best practices from colleagues. In this post I lay out a summary of some of the key patterns...

Photo by  Frank Cone  from  Pexels “As I considered the importance of language and how human beings interact with the world, it struck me that in many ways the development of language was like the discovery of fire — it was such an incredible primordial force. I had always thought that we used language to  describe  the world — now I was seeing that this is not the case. To the contrary, it is through language that we  create  the world, because it's nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe .” Joseph Jaworski I read about this concept in one of Edward de Bono’s books, but when I was looking for it now, I couldn’t find in which one. I first came across this thought 20 years ago. This has profoundly shaped the way I see the world. I hope it will inspire...

Photo by  Markus Spiske  from  Pexels Three Sentences - a disciplined way to deal with email Source: http://three.sentenc.es/ The Problem:  E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot. The Solution:  Treat all email responses like SMS text messages or Tweets, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, count sentences instead. Three Sentences is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or fewer. It’s that simple. Photo by  Anna Tarazevich  from  Pexels Advice hack - ask the Master In a high stakes situation, when the other party is a master at his / her game. e.g. when selling your used car to a dealer.  Ask for advice from the master as to answer his/her own question. Salesman: "What is your asking price?" You: "You are ...

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande Rating: 8/10 There are two reasons why people fail. Ignorance meaning we only have a partial understanding of the world and how it works, and ineptitude when the knowledge exists but we fail to apply it correctly. We have accumulated stupendous know-how and have accomplished extraordinary things. Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable . Checklists are a strategy for overcoming failure by building on experience and taking advantage of the knowledge people have, but also making up for our inadequacies . The problem of extreme complexity Three different kinds of problems exist in the world: Simple problems like baking a cake from a mix. Complicated problems such as sending a rocket to the moon, which can sometimes be broken down into a series of simple problems and where unanticipated difficulties are frequent. Finally, complex problems like raising a child for which a process...

We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem. Russel L. Ackoff In case you were wondering, those are ducks on the table. The facilitator gave us six pieces of LEGOs and asked us to create ducks. You may think this is a well-defined problem. I find it amazing though, how each of us in a group of ten came up with a completely original design. Our unique perspective and our experiences and skills hugely influence our solutions to problems. How we perceive a situation will heavily influence the issues we identify and the solutions we find. If you put one person into a situation, they get stuck. When you put another into the same situation, they solve it in an instant or solve it in a way that you would have never expected. You can frame problems differently leading to unique solutions. Outside school there are rarely problems with an ultimate right solution. To go a step further, there are ra...

You can increase your problem-solving skills by honing your question-asking ability. Michael J. Gelb We live in the world our questions create. David Cooperrider To a man with only a hammer... To a man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is especially true for the way we ask questions. I believe in the power of asking questions. However, often I find myself jumping to solution mode too quickly, before properly defining the problem and understanding the real issue that needs to be solved. I am blinded by my experience, my training and my expertise.  Don't misunderstand me! There is nothing wrong with having experience and expertise. On the contrary! But you need to know when to use it: once the issue has been properly framed by having asked the right questions.  What makes asking questions very tricky is how based on your personality and experience you are predisposed to asking certain questions, while almost always missin...