A Proven 6-Step System to Solve Any Problem
I've always been obsessed with solving problems.
Call it a knack, skill, or sadistic hobby, but solving problems is fun. I know most people aren't like that. Most people shut down when they face a problem. They let their emotions lead them to the wrong decisions — which makes everything worse. Even though I love problems, I still let emotions, biases, and domestic programming persuade me into the wrong choices.
But we can all improve at solving problems even when it's not a core trait.
A few years ago, I was struggling to lead my company.
I was focused in too many areas, all of which got a little piece of me — I was average in a lot and great at none. One of these areas was my sales team. I was in charge of it all. Strategy, hiring, firing, coaching, it was a lot on top of everything else I was trying to juggle. As a result, I had a high turnover, and it felt impossible to hire and develop exceptional salespeople.
Labor costs were rising, revenue stalled, and I didn't know what to do.
Every problem starts with your response-ability.
As Sadhguru teaches, "My life is 100% my doing, and my response-ability dictates the direction."
If someone breaks your leg, you can dwell on getting them back. You can transform your life into a negative cycle of redemption for that damn leg of yours. Or you can get your leg fixed and go where you need to go continuing to live a happy and healthy life.
Your broken leg isn't the core problem; the response you take is.
A great response always starts with a great question.
Instead of blaming, you ask yourself, "How can I solve the problem? What can I learn from the situation? How am I reacting?"
Most problems aren't problems at all. It's your reaction to certain situations that create a problem. Think about it. If someone starts to degrade you verbally, your response to the verbal attack creates a problem.
If you ignored the person or went on with your life, the verbal attack wouldn't be a problem.
Instead of blaming the people I was hiring, I needed to look at myself.
I needed to inspect and upgrade our hiring systems to ensure we attract and hire the right people. I needed to ensure that if people were toxic to our team, not following our processes, or weren't self-accountable for their own results, we needed to remove the person from the team — ASAP.
It's easy to blame others for our mistakes because then you don't have to work on improving yourself. But, unfortunately, it's our human tendency to find a scapegoat and pile on.
To develop, you need to take responsibility for your actions.
In our current culture and society, we have a habit of blaming others for our problems.
We blame the billionaire for not donating enough to rid global warming. We blame an actor slapping a comedian on live television for violence. We blame social media CEOs for corrupting our children.
We've become a society of blame and shame.
Our default question to any problem is, "Who is to blame?"
Any answer beyond yourself won't solve the problem. Blame never leads to a solution. Instead, it leaves you with more questions, blame, and internal stress.
What's more important is asking yourself:
"How can I solve this problem? And am I part of the solution or the problem?"
If you want to solve your problems, focus on those questions instead of whether it was someone else's fault.
When you blame others, you give up your power to change something.
You can't control what other people think or do.
Think about times like these:
"I can't believe they delayed our order again. I told them three times about this order's importance, and they still screwed it up. They're so stupid!"
"I can't believe she was late again. She knew how important this meeting was, and now we looked stupid. What a terrible team player!"
"They keep screwing up and making me look bad. I can't trust them!"
If this sounds familiar, you, like most of us, default to blaming others for problems rather than focusing on solutions for the problem.
The world would be a much different place if we put down blame and shame and focused on solutions. Blaming others for your problems is a surefire way to keep yourself from resolving them.
Before you get all bent out of shape, I am not saying we should never blame anyone for anything.
If someone steals your car or physically attacks you, you'll blame them!
But when it comes down to our actions and reactions, blaming others is counter-productive.
Your blame feeds the self-fulfilling prophecy:
If we think someone else is unreliable, they will likely prove us right by behaving in a manner that reinforces our belief that they are unreliable.
You'll find any justification to blame them.
The only two things you can control are what you think about and how you respond.
You can only control how you react.
You can't control what other people think, you can't control how they behave, and you can't control the consequences of their actions, but you control your own thoughts and behavior.
This is a simple but powerful concept to understand.
If you don't accept it, you will continue to blame others for what happens to you — and we all know how well that works out!
Blaming others usually makes things worse.
Before you ever encounter a problem, you must do these three things well:
1/ Learn to control your emotions.
Bad decisions begin with the reaction to your emotions.
Think back to a recent time when you had an argument or made a foolish decision. Peel back the layers. Did you follow emotion rather than logic?
Unmanaged emotions create immense pain.
You must learn to manage your emotions.
2/ Always prepare for the worst.
Premeditation Malorum means the pre-meditations of evil.
It is a stoic exercise in which one imagines things going wrong in our life. Viewing life through this lens helps you prepare for the most nefarious situations. It helps you understand that life is by far from perfect.
It's not meant to shield us from pain or sadness but to prepare for it, as it's inevitable.
Always prepare for the worst, even if the worst never comes.
3/ Get good sleep.
Getting great sleep will make you healthier, happier, and live a more fulfilling life.
Everything positive starts with great sleep. It's what fuels your mind and body for the day to come. Conversely, when you sleep poorly, everything else suffers.
Your body has a natural rhythm that prefers to flow with sunrise and sunset.
That's not always possible, but if you stick with your body's natural cycles, you'll be shocked at the positive effect on your mind and body.
When you're tired, go to bed, and get up when you're ready to wake up.
But you also have to make sure you have good sleep habits:
No alcohol
No caffeine 8hrs before bed
No eating 4hrs before bed
A calm mind
A cold room
A dark room
A silent (or with white noise) room
Now, let's get to solving problems:
Conduct a 6-step Sweet Spot Analysis to solve any problem.
A sweet spot analysis is just as it sounds:
You're looking for the sweet spot for the best solutions to your current problem. You'll do nothing if you try to do everything, so finding the right things to execute is vital.
If you have too many options and not a good way to filter the best, then you'll also suffer from paralysis by analysis.
The goal is to find the handful of solutions that will have the biggest and quickest impact.
Schedule 45-minutes to conduct your Sweet Spot Analysis following these steps:
Step 1: Write your challenge statement.
A challenge statement is one to two sentences that clearly and concisely explain the problem.
It's written as a question and should always start with "How can we/I..."
Here's an example of the problem I was having:
"How can we reduce the time it takes to onboard and develop an Account Executive from generating minimally acceptable results at 12 months down to 6 months with greater results?"
Step 2: Write your problem questions.
Now, you'll write a few problem questions to help spark ideas on how to solve your challenge.
The questions are written from different angles and perspectives to help break through any cognitive biases. I highly recommend the book Invisible Solutions to learn more about asking the right questions.
Here are some examples:
Reduct Abstraction: "What is the one factor that will have the greatest impact? What gives us the greatest leverage in solving this challenge?"
Increase Abstraction: "What does this make possible? What is the desired outcome?"
Change Perspective: "Who else could perform this task? How can we generalize the question so that it does not imply anyone in particular? How else might this task be accomplished (e.g., via automation)?"
Zero-In: "Do we really know the underlying problem we want to solve? Are we solving the root cause of the problem?"
Switch Elements: "How can we turn the problem upside down by improving a different factor?
Step 3: Create a list of ideas to resolve your problem statement.
On the same piece of paper or document, draw two lines down the page, separating it into thirds.
You'll write the following at the top of each column:
Solution idea
Impactful?
Quick and easy?
Now, armed with your questions, start to braindump ideas that might help solve the problem by answering the questions and your problem statement. As you ideate, don't judge or filter your thoughts. Whatever comes to mind, write it down.
Here are some of the ideas I came up with for my sales challenge:
Create automation in our CRM that progresses an opportunity only when key milestones have been achieved.
All customer quotes must get approved by a Subject Matter Expert until the new hire is proficient with quoting.
Schedule reoccurring team role-playing sessions.
Schedule time to shadow mentors in the field.
Create a prospect pre-qualification cheat sheet.
Develop our Subject Matter Expert mentorship procedure.
Update our Account Executive hiring criteria and interview scorecards.
Hire more experienced Account Executives.
Improve our compensation and bonus plans.
Hire an industry-experienced Director of Sales
Step 4: Apply your IQ.
After you've exhausted all your ideas, you will label each idea.
Start with the "Impactful?" column.
Go down the list and ask yourself, "Is this idea Impactful?" which means will this idea create a massive victory if executed reasonably well? Write an "I" next to your idea in the column.
Once you're done going down your list and answering this question, you'll move to the next column.
Now, go down your list and ask yourself, "Is this Quick and Easy?" which means it's easy to execute and won't require a lot of time or money.
Write a "Q" next to your idea in this third column.
Step 5: Identify your sweet spots.
Your best ideas are at the intersection of Impactful and Quick/Easy; that's your sweet spot.
You start with the things that are both Impactful and Easy to execute. Why? Because those are the ones that will give you the most significant momentum early on.
Go through your list and see which ideas have both an "I" and "Q."
Step 6: Create and prioritize your action plan using Optimized Productivity.
Last, you're going to take your best ideas, the ones with an "I" and "Q," and build an action plan around them.
Some ideas will require a simple task, while others must be planned and executed through a multi-step project.
The most crucial point is:
Now that you know what needs to be done, you MUST become laser-focused on what matters the most. If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing, so focus on the few things that will have the greatest impact.
I use these steps whenever I have an opportunity, threat, or problem that needs my attention.
It's so powerful that once you become familiar with the steps, you'll wonder how you have ever solved any problem before.
