How To Become A Better Problem Solver

John Dewery, one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and functional psychology once said “A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved”. We read this and we think, yeah, that’s right! But how often do we really stop to properly define a problem? How do you go about doing that?

More often than not, we are automatically biased towards dealing with the symptoms we see and feel rather than framing and scoping the decision we need to make to change them! Being natural problem solvers, people have a huge propensity to believe in their capabilities of finding a solution right away! As it turns out, this is one of the biggest mistakes of problem solving!

Finding the right decision to make is a process, where the decision comes at the end, not the beginning!

• The first step is to clearly define your decision problem and clarify what you are trying to achieve by solving it.
• Next, you ought to create alternatives to choose from, and make sure that each of the alternatives generated meets your objectives.
• At that point, you will be ready to make a decision after considering thetrade-offs between alternatives, uncertainty of the outcomes and your appetite of risk!
• Along the way, you have to be aware of the biases you might be facing.

Just like anything else: you learn decision-making; you exercise it multiple times to get better at it, until it becomes something you excel at. There are no “natural” problem solvers and decision makers; there are only trained ones and untrained ones!

Once you become trained, your perspective to “problems” changes! You become less averse and more competent and capable of facing them. This is what our workshop will prepare you and your organization to be. Together, we will learn and practice the decision making process that will sets you on the right path to leadership and your organization on the right path to success!

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