When we try to solve problems of any kind, we usually start by trying to find a solution. When some asks what the problems is, we usually say, "I just need…," and describe the solution to a problem we haven't really articulated.
The real power is in finding the right problem. I this episode, I'll show you how to get it done.
I can help you find the right problem, and the best solution. Go to natewalkercoaching.com, click on the contacts page, and tell me how I might be of assistance. There are great things that you and I can do, and great tools that I have available to help you.
When we try to solve problems of any kind, we usually start by trying to find a solution. When some asks what the problems is, we usually say, "I just need…," and describe the solution to a problem we haven't really articulated.
The real power is in finding the right problem. I this episode, I'll show you how to get it done.
I can help you find the right problem, and the best solution. Go to natewalkercoaching.com, click on the contacts page, and tell me how I might be of assistance. There are great things that you and I can do, and great tools that I have available to help you.
Hello, my fine friends. I was thinking the other day about an exercise that I commonly do in the workshops that I have delivered all over the place, all over the world. There's one that's particularly challenging for those who attend, and it's the most fun, and it may be the most helpful, and I'm gonna teach you how to do it. This will affect every conversation you have that involves any kind of a decision or coming to agreement on something, whether in your marriage, in your business, in your church, or anything else. Let me explain the concept first by bringing up a horse racing example. If you ever watch horse races or have seen a movie like Secretariat or something, and have seen a horse run, you'll notice that a lot of times the thoroughbreds especially have blinders on. They're things that look like, goggles that cover both sides of their heads, so they can't see off to the side. Blinders help the horse not become distracted by the ones on either side, and instead just head for the finish line as hard as they can go. As humans, we are prone to operate with blinders on anytime we're trying to solve a problem. We come up with what we think the solution might be, and then we just had that direction going really fast. If someone else is involved and they have a different way of seeing it, It almost always devolves into some sort of battle over whose solution is right, but that's not the problem. Eighty percent of the time--- no, that's probably not right--- probably ninety-nine percent of the time, we'll say between eighty and ninety-nine percent of the time, the problem is not, coming up with the right solution. The problem is coming up with the right problem. Usually we speak of solutions as though we were solving the problem by using that language. For example, even in Fortune 100 companies that I've worked"with, I might go in and say, well, what is it that you're trying to do this year? Help me understand what you're trying to accomplish?""Well, the problem is we need a single, um, a single repository for all of the information that we gather from our stores and our websites and everything else, so that we can target individuals from that single data source, and we don't really have a way to do that." That wasn't the problem. They said,"the problem is...," but they didn't describe a problem. Did you catch it? They described what they think the solution is. Then they will run pell mell toward a solution and they will argue and bicker and get bids and RFPs and everything else, trying to find the thing that will allow them to"unify their data across multiple sources" and so on. But they haven't clearly articulated the problem. It would astonish you how many companies are held together with duct tape, and when a person like myself goes in and helps them understand, or helps them identify what the problem actually is, they're usually shocked and dismayed."Good heavens! We almost spend a million dollars or$10 million on something that wouldn't work!" We do that in every area of our lives. It doesn't have to be business. It can be your marriage. It can be your own meditation about where you want to go and what your goals are for next year. The best thing you can do is focus on finding the right problem first, and then solving it. To find the problem, and know you have found it, requires that you simplify it. Now, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Johnny Ive have all talked about this. They say simplifying something is extremely difficult, and it is. Complexity is easy. Simplification is hard. Einstein said you don't understand a thing well enough until you can simplify it down to something really, really easy to understand. Until then, you don't know enough. So I'm gonna teach you how to do that, and it's really fast and it's really simple, and it's really fun. During the workshop itself I'll split the people up into teams, three to five people. Usually an uneven number is helpful, and I'll say,"okay, for the next 20 minutes, your job is to describe to the other members of your team what you do for a living, but you can use no industry jargon, no technical terms, and everything that you say must be easily understood by a six year old. Some scoff, thinking that exercise is too easy. Some say it's impossible to do without using those terms. We're professionals. We're talking to professionals. Why are you dumbing it down? I'm not dumbing it down. I'm helping you understand it well enough to simplify it. And then I say,"and you may not simply dumb it down." You can't say,"uh, for a living, I help people." No, that doesn't count. You must clearly explain to your team and to me what you do for a living, and it has to be no industry jargon, no technical terms, easily understood by a six-year-old. You can do the same exercise in speaking with your spouse or with your church group or in your own business and ask a different question. You will find that people always speak about problems using the language of what they think will solve it. Here's an example. The other day, my wife and I were talking about whether or not we should cancel our monthly car wash membership that allows us to get unlimited washes for two cars. She thought that they were charging us way too much money. Not the total amount per se, but just that, for a car wash, it's robbery to charge that amount. So she thought it was a fairness issue and a financial issue. She doesn't like paying for it. To me, it was a maintenance issue, and I like the way I feel when I'm in a clean car. I feel like I'm on top of things and getting stuff done. We saw it two different ways. All of us tend to speak in the language of the solution. She began the conversation by telling me what we needed to do. We need to cancel the car wash. We need to not pay so much. We need to do this. I responded thoughtlessly by saying, well, we need to make sure the cars are clean. We need to do this. We're not talking about what the problem even is. We're talking about what we think will solve a problem that we haven't clearly identified. Here's what you're trying to do with this"speak like a six-year-old" exercise. You're trying to decide what it is you are actually trying to solve, what the actual problem is, and(and please never forget this, this is the most important thing) what principles you will base that solution on. What are the universal principles that apply in this situation upon which you will stake the whole thing? Where will you not budge? You have to decide what they are. So how do you do it? How do you get down to the problem,, and how do you simplify it that way and speak as though you were talking to a six year old and have it easily understood? One of the first things you might do is identify the emotions that are involved, especially in intimate relationships or superior subordinate relationships, like if you're talking to a boss or somebody and they've given you a mandate. One of the first things you want to understand is how they're feeling. How do you do that? You say,"how do you feel about this?" Listen for them to identify emotions that they have. If they respond, by saying,"well, I feel like you just don't get it"... No. A feeling, an emotion, is something that we need to identify in the person who holds it. Me telling somebody else how they feel is neither accurate, nor polite, and it won't help solve the problem. So the first thing I did, as I was talking to my wife is I said,"okay, how are you feeling about this?""Well, I feel a little trapped and I feel a little angry, a little frustrated." And so I told her how I felt about it, and then we talked about,"okay, what are we actually trying to solve?" What is it that you really want to solve?"Well, what I really want to do is solve the problem of being fiscally responsible," she said."I'm not sure that this thing that we have chosen to do is fiscally responsible." And then she was tempted to go running off on, and it's too much money to charge for a car wash and it's this, but we paused the conversation and I talked about how I felt. And then I said,"okay, what principles apply here that are universal that would apply whether we're talking about a carwash or anything else? What are the principles that are important in finding the problem?" And we talked about the principles that apply. Now, I began by talking about horses with blinders on. The blinders come off, and you can see much more broadly when you've identified what the problem actually is and what principles are important to you, and each person knows how they feel. Only then do the blinders come off. But boy do they come off! If, after this, you start talking about how to solve it, you will be absolutely astonished. You will be shocked at how many more options are available to you. Things will come to mind that were not available before you simplified it down and identified the problem, and the principle, and the emotions involved. Once you've done that, you can see solutions you could not see, period. And this applies in business, it applies in marriage, it applies in everything. You want to see solutions to problems that were unavailable to you before(the solutions, I mean, not the problems)? Simplify the problem. Identify what it actually is, what you're actually trying to solve, what the principles are that apply, and then what your emotional state is and how you're going to start looking at solutions. Only then do you look for solutions. Then you might begin with something like this."You've obviously put a lot of thought into this, and you have some strong feelings. Can you share with me maybe your first idea for how you might solve this? And I'll share some of the things that I've thought about." You'll be surprised. If people are willing to do that, all of a sudden, where there were only two ways to solve the problem, or one"my way or the highway," there will be twelve. Now, that's a made up number, but you get the point. There will be a whole bunch of stuff available to us that we simply couldn't see before. It's emotionally blocked. It's blocked by not understanding the problem, and it's blocked by not basing it on principles that will apply universally across our business, our family, our marriage, or whatever. So, try the six-year-old questions; the six-year-old descriptions; the six-year-old answers. Have the conversation about what the problem actually is, but make sure that the whole conversation could be easily understood by a six year old, uses no jargon, no terms, no anything that would alienate or frustrate or create complexity--- and get down to the heart of what it really is.,Then say,"well, what are your ideas?""Well, here are some of my ideas.""How do you feel about that? Does that conform to the principles that we want to stick to? Does that feel like something that might work? Are there any blinders that we're still wearing? Are there other things we have not thought of that come to mind for you? Maybe we should sit down and just, brainstorm this thing and see what else comes to mind." I'm telling you, this works. It has worked for some of the biggest companies in the world, and it'll work for you. Give it a try. If it doesn't work, I want to know about it. Now. If you follow me on social media, feel free to respond there, or tell me what happened, or tell me how it went the first time you tried it. If you want to put something in podcast comments or something, that's great. If you want, go to natewalkercoaching.com, go to the contacts area, and tell me how I can help you. Applying this on a large scale and getting really good at it... it's usually easier if you have some help from somebody who's done it over and over and over, and I can help you. You will see huge changes in the amount of information that is suddenly available to you, and in the relationship, and where applicable, you'll see massive increases in revenue. It will shock you how much difference just this one exercise will make. Let me know how it goes. We'll talk again soon.