Business is fraught with problems. In fact, most entrepreneurs are problem solvers at heart – the very existence of their businesses is due to a desire to solve a problem they perceived. That said, when the problems are manifold and occurring under the roof of your own business, it can be overwhelming and difficult to nail down what’s actually causing the problem at hand. This means we often end up dealing with problems from a place of reactivity and grasping to regain control rather than finding an actual solution for the root cause. In the long run, this results in a culture of fire-fighting that, once instilled in the business, is very difficult to move away from.
Do you see a problem? Before jumping to a solution, hold on! Take a minute to consider what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what the actual impact of it is. When you take the time to understand the problem, you are actually investing in a long-term solution.
The title of this post is actually a quote attributed either to Deming or Kettering, but we’ll leave them out of the rest of this discussion. Often, when we see a problem, we get overwhelmed, annoyed, or irritated because we’ve been thrown off our original course. The intention we set for our activity has been completely derailed by the cropping up of a circumstance seemingly out of our control.
Our tendency in this space is to react – get rid of the problem as quickly as possible. Depending on the situation, this can serve us well or not. Often, the determining factor for the success of the solution is how well we understood the actual problem. For example, if there’s a fire in the kitchen, we might jump to throw water on it. Great solution, since we know how fires work – unless, of course, it’s a grease fire. Then that “solution” actually results in a bigger problem.
It can be very difficult to pause and consider what we know – and what we don’t know – about the problem at hand. This is where this idea – that taking time to understand your problem actually helps you solve it for good – is very helpful. Do you have five minutes to consider the problem? What if you could be guaranteed that any time you spent thinking through the problem, understanding it, getting a grasp on what was really going on would go towards solving the problem once and for all?
You can actually be guaranteed this! When you pause to actually think about the problem instead of just letting yourself react, you are much more likely to have an effective, intentional course of action. Where might you practice this today in your business?
Activity: Identify a problem that’s bothering you today. Set the timer for 10 minutes and brainstorm all the information you have about the problem – all the facts. If you have emotions attached to the problem, separate those out into a different list (this helps you maintain your objectivity). After having done this, what might the root cause of the problem actually be? Do you have different perspective on it now than you did?