'How to': a powerful problem-solving technique

I was referring the other day to fishbone diagrams, and my difficulties with them.

I ended the posting by suggesting that fishbones don't help to define the problem.

So what is available to do that job?

You know you've got a problem when you know you want to do something, but you don't know what to do.

You're stuck.

And a solution is any course of action that 'unsticks' you.  It's not a 'fix', or an object.  It's something you do.

Here's a technique that I find enormously powerful for getting 'unstuck'.  You can use it in a range of ways to unlock your own creativity, and that of others.

 How to ‘How to’

State the problem as a phrase beginning with the words ‘How to’.

That's it. No other rules apply.

'How to’ helps us to look at problems in new ways.  In particular, it magically transforms problems from obstacles into goals. 

The upmarket name for this technique is ‘goal orientation’.  ‘How to’ frames a problem as a goal.  The moment you state a problem as a ‘How to’ statement, you must start to look at it as an objective.  Once you have started to look at the problem in that way, you can begin to work out how you might go about solving it.

The ‘How to’ technique starts with two assumptions.

·         Somebody owns the problem.

·         They are stuck.

Let’s look at these two important pre-conditions.

 

Owning the problem

The first step in solving any problem is to take ownership of it.  Problems without owners tend to become problems without solutions.

‘How to’ encourages us to take ownership of a problem.  It’s difficult to express the problem as a ‘How to’ statement and not take responsibility for it.  The moment we start to use ‘How to’, we are impelled to state the problem in such a way that we can feel responsible for it.

Sometimes, simply taking this first step makes problems fade away.  Once we realize that ‘it’s not my problem’, we rest easy.  And, if it remains our problem, we have begun to feel responsible for it.  We have become a ‘problem owner’.

 

Being stuck

So you need to be clear who owns the problem. But why is the problem owner stuck?

Because they are looking at the problem in only one way.

All of our thinking begins with assumptions.  If we don’t challenge them, they become fixed into a mindset.  It’s the mindset that makes us stuck.  To come unstuck, we need to break out of the mindset. 

You could think of the mindset as a hole that you are digging.  Being stuck in the mindset is like digging the same hole deeper.  Breaking out of the mindset is like escaping from the hole and finding a different place to dig.  That’s why this kind of thinking is called ‘lateral’: it helps us move sideways instead of vertically.

‘How to’ helps us to break the mindset.  By looking at the problem in a different way, the problem owner can begin to think of different ways of tackling it.

 

Imagine you’re stuck in the mud in your car.  Your first stab at a solution is to see if the car will move.  You put your foot on the accelerator.  The wheels spin uselessly.  Now what do you do?  If you keep trying the move the car, you’ll only make matters worse.  Instead, you need to look at the problem in another way. 

Do a ‘How to’: “how to make the car move”.  At once, alternative ‘how to’ statements begin to suggest themselves.

How to move the car.

How to stop the wheels spinning.

How to get a grip.

How to shift the car in another direction.

How to stop getting annoyed.

How to think of another solution.

The key is to generate as many new ‘How to’ statements as possible.  This ‘unsticks’ our thinking.  Once ‘unstuck’, we can begin to find solutions: courses of action that we might take.

In a future posting, I shall develop this technique and suggest variations.

You can find out more in my book, How to Solve Almost Any Problem.