If you\u2019d like something interesting to ponder this weekend, here\u2019s a quote about problem solving that comes from the philosopher Alan Watts: <\/p>\n
\u201cThe question \u2018What shall we do about it?\u2019 is only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a mighty counterintuitive take on things, which is part of its charm. After all, the reflexive outlook is that solutions are hammers that we use to smash problems; lavishing too much attention on the problem itself seems like fraternizing with the enemy. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a conceptual trap that\u2019s easy to fall into. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll admit that it might be a stretch to actually like a problem, but I think that having a reflexive hostility to everything we call a problem can set us up for even bigger woes. That\u2019s a common situation. As a result, there\u2019s a lot of unnecessary hostility in the world. <\/p>\n
I like to keep this quote from Watts in mind for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I don\u2019t want to wind up considering every circumstance I encounter as a problem to be solved. <\/p>\n
After all, many circumstances are just that, circumstances, and they don\u2019t all demand that I have some sort of reaction to them. If a problem really isn\u2019t a problem, then there\u2019s no need to worry about a solution.<\/p>\n
One way I cultivated this outlook was by working on the high seas on fishing vessels. Actually, I didn\u2019t cultivate the outlook, the outlook cultivated me. I had no control over a ship\u2019s operational realm; no idea where I\u2019d be in one, two, three, or six months; and no idea what was going on in the outside world. <\/p>\n
So I just learned to accept each day on its own merits. This was alien to the goal-oriented, make-the-most-of-your-time, always-be-planning, always-update-your-forecasts, always-be-optimizing conditioning of my earlier days. <\/p>\n
But, of course, some situations do require problem solving. This brings me to the second reason I like the quote. It reminds me to really think about a problem in terms of its own nature. Otherwise, I might just steamroller over it by imposing my own agenda from the outset.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, this is one case where the lecture hall held some real-world wisdom. In school, knowing how to set up a problem was more important than penciling-out the actual solution. Getting the right equations laid out was probably 80 percent of the battle. <\/p>\n
As for solutions, well, many were merely rote calculations. They can save time and effort, but they can be real booby traps if they\u2019re applied to the wrong types of problems. In fact, having the right solution to the wrong problem is a common way of messing things up. <\/p>\n
One common problem I\u2019ve seen in the business world is the desire to influence what customers are going to do without taking sufficient account of what customers actually want to do. The latter realm, which demands getting improved insights into the customer\u2019s preferences, is very difficult. One reason it\u2019s so difficult is that it requires being able to ignore your own preferences in order to consider somebody else\u2019s preferences. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s far easier, and, in some realms, far more common, to simply try to manipulate the customer. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all been on the receiving end of that stuff: marketing gimmicks, deceptive pricing or \u201cdiscount\u201d schemes, callous reductions in service quality, stealthy reductions in product quality. When these are \u201csolutions\u201d to the problem, it\u2019s likely that the problem itself should have been defined more carefully. <\/p>\n
Given that situation, although I don\u2019t think managers usually set out to take the low road, it\u2019s easy to wind up there anyway if they\u2019re expected to show some action as a solution to a poorly-defined \u201cproblem.\u201d Once this spiral starts, it\u2019s self-reinforcing. <\/p>\n
In those cases, any manager, or, for that matter, any executive, who suggests circling around and re-examining the problem itself will wind up on the streets right away, free to pursue, as they say, \u201cother opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyway, those are a few examples of what comes to mind when the question \u201cWhat shall we do about it?\u201d comes up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019d like something interesting to ponder this weekend, here\u2019s a quote about problem solving…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-279096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-business-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}