How to turn negative problems into positive results

If you are in business, problem-solving is a constant part of your business life.

No problem is simple, or it wouldn’t be a problem.

Some problems are critical to the success of your company.

One way to make solving problems easier and more effective is to turn a negative problem into a positive result.

Start With These Questions

Start the process by answering the question, “what is your goal?”

Is this problem important enough to spend time and energy on it?

If yes, you need to state the problem in writing so it is clear and you can focus on it. For example:

1. How could we differentiate our product or service from competitors?

2. What new product should we be developing?

3. How can we improve our service?

Next, turn the problem into a challenge statement.

Michael Michalko, in his excellent book, “Thinkertoys,” explains this creative process

and that the challenge statement has to be written as a positive challenge.

For example, “why have revenues slowed down?” focuses on finding the negative reasons.

But, if you restate the problem into a challenge

such as “In what ways might I get customers to buy more?” you focus on finding positive answers.

For each problem or challenge, state your problem as a positive challenge or statement. For example, instead of:

Old statement: “How can we reduce costs to improve cash flow?

New positive statement: “How could we boost margins on current offerings?’

Why can’t we stay on plan?” vs. “What could we do to meet consistent deadlines?

Why is onboarding so complicated?” vs. “What could we do to simplify onboarding?”

Note: Mr. Michalko recommends your challenge statement use the phrase.

“In what ways might I …..? He also recommends spending time crafting your challenge statement.

The more time you spend refining your challenge statement, the closer you will be to the solution.

You should be able to generate many different answers or ideas from these questions.

Make a list of every idea, and select some that you think have promise.

Then, substitute keywords to broaden your view.

Identify keywords in your challenge statement and substitute other words for them.

For example: instead of reducing costs, use eliminate costs. Instead of boost margins use to raise prices.

Each word change should give you a broader view of the problem, a different viewpoint, and different ideas.

Keep making word changes until you run out of ideas.

Your success in creating new problem-solving ideas depends in part on how you define your problem.

You can also create broader perspectives by asking “Why? to each of your ideas or answers.

Ask Why

For each “answer”: Why do you want to improve your service?

Then, Why do you think improving service will add value?

Then, Why will this value enable us to increase prices? Etc.

Now, break your Broadview down to specifics.

With all this information, you can now get down to specifics by breaking each answer into subcategories.

These subcategories will generate even more ideas.

For example, “When will this new product be ready?”

Who could design the new product?

These kinds of questions will give you more ideas and make it easier to solve the problem.

Conclusion

This thinking process enables you to restructure existing information into new patterns and ideas and turn these problems into opportunities.

You start with your goal, identified the problem, and then turn the problem into a challenge statement that you can analyze in depth.

This will enable you to see the problem through several lenses and get different perceptions of the problem.

After reading this blog post. select a problem and go through the exercise for practice.

That is how you will learn to do it and it’s fun!

Insights, not data or information lead to better strategic decisions.

We know that strategy starts with a comprehensive diagnosis of the problem, which will lead to insights. At that point, you have to make a series of important decisions. To start, you have to decide how much data do you need before you can make a decision? If all you did was a search on Google, you could get millions of articles, etc. The problem is you can’t read them all, and you would have to verify the information in each item.

The mindset of most executives is that you need lots of data on whatever the problem is before you can make a decision. That may be true, but what data? Christopher Frank and Paul Magnone wrote a book on “making decisions without drowning in information” that may change your mind about data, information, insights, and decisions.

They state that you need to start your quest for data by asking, “What is the essential question you need to answer to make the decision.” In other words, you only need data that will help you answer that essential question. Therefore, you should be able to eliminate most of the data. The data or information may be interesting but not relevant. The question will tell you what data you need.

Once you have your information, you can begin triangulating this information. This triangulation will enable you to gain insights that you did not have before, answer the question, and make better decisions.

In summary, start the decision-making process by asking the essential question you have to answer to make the decision. Gather only the data that relates to that question. Compare the data points to get the information you need. Then, by triangulating the relevant information available, you will get the real insights you need to make the decision.

You may have to rethink your mindset about what data you need and how much data you need to make carefully thought out timely decisions.