Help your teams problem solve

Problem solving is an important skill that can help your teams get to the root of an issue and solve what really is holding them back. 

Very often in our desire to solve problems, we jump straight into solution mode. While it is great to get to a solution, jumping straight to step 6 (yes, there are 7 steps!) can be fraught with danger. You could very easily end up spending time, effort, money and other resources and not end up at a solution. 

The very first step to solve any problem, big or small, is to first ‘Identify the problem’. There are 2 parts to this step: 

1. Acknowledge or recognise that there is a problem. 

2. Define the problem. 

If we don’t do either of these well enough, we will end up with solutions for problems that do not exist. I recently came across a video that shows through humour how we can make a mess of problem solving if we do no identify the problem properly.