The “Problem Seer”

A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks:

“Are you sure you lost the keys here?”

the drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the park.”

“So, why are you searching here?”

the drunk replies, “this is where the light is.” ¹

Stupid drunk, huh?

Funny thing about this story is that most of us can relate to it. Either because we have seen the drunk, or we have been the drunk.

Now, I don’t mean that in the literal sense. We’ve all been trapped in a situation, say, a committee, team, or a meeting, where a lot of time and effort is going toward discussing or “fixing” the wrong thing. Fixing the symptom, not the disease. Adding new tools, without having a defined workflow or system in place. Adding systems without looking at the issues of implementation. Making choices based on misinformation. Throwing the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

Well, I’m one of those persons quick to identify these kinds of challenges and point them out.

The truth is, I can’t help myself. It’s an innate ability honed under the tutelage of my father. An engineer by trade, he was an expert in the art and science of anticipating problems, and building redundancies in systems, in order to prevent the potential damage from all plausible worst-case scenarios.

I’m not kidding. If there was a problem, yo’, he’d anticipate it.

Unfortunately for people like us, not everyone welcomes observations that point out the flaws in someone else’s concepts, business, processes, designs, ideas, etc.

Naysayer. Negative. Pessimistic. You know the labels.

I wonder if this is because we live in way that is so safe, where are so protected by the safeguards around us, that we are losing our sense of self-preservation. If that is the case, maybe it’s because we do not, in fact, need it as much anymore?

Maybe alertness and situational awareness has completely given into the social media stream. Maybe the focus on testing in education is corroding problem solving skills. Maybe there is a disproportionate focus on “positivity” that borders on denial. Too many participation awards?

Maybe it’s a little bit of all of the above?

Positivity and Problem Solving

I once had a prospect who could afford the luxury of doing and leading yoga hikes. I write “could afford” because this was not a profitable enterprise. It was also a time-consuming one. The time and effort that went into it was an expense, however rewarding. In business, we call that a hobby.

He badly needed help turning this into a business, and called me for help with his “website”.

When we met, his explanation of what he needed was not clear. And I mean, he wasn’t clear about what he needed, much less able to articulate it. I helped him define the business model, so that we could understand the business needs. As we did that, it became clear his current setup would not be able to handle the business demands.

Originally, he thought he needed “an ecommerce solution”. In fact, what he needed was a more sophisticated solution. One that would manage events scheduling, payments, keep track of attendees, send reminders, and allow them to create a user profile, among other needs. In short, he needed a membership and event management system like they use in spas and gyms.

As I started pointing out all these needs and what could be done, he got visibly frustrated and overwhelmed. I was surprised, as I was pointing out the promise of a profitable business that would be easier to manage. But he had no patience for this. I suspect this was in part because he also had no budget set up for this, nor time, as he had created an imaginary deadline for himself. He just wanted it done, wanted to pay as little as possible, and I guess I got him out of his Zen place with my talk of systems and functionalities.

Needless to say we did not work together. I expected that.

What struck me as surprising was that, later on, I learned he said about me: “he is a problem seer”. As in “someone who only sees problems”, and to suggest that’s why we didn’t work together.

The gall.

Nevermind the fact that he did go and use –although poorly implemented– my recommendation. The one I researched complimentary for him, yes. Nevermind he in fact proved my solution was instrumental to his success.

No. As far as Mr. Positivity is concerned, I was too focused on the problem, and that’s why we couldn’t work together. People like this, I need them out of my life for good. No one needs these faux-positive people. Positivity is good. Positivity alone only gets you likes in Facebook and hearts in Instagram.

Let me tell you something about positivity. Yes, one needs to be optimistic about the possibility of solving a problem. That helps. Knowing the odds, all entrepreneurs have to be optimistic to even attempt entrepreneurship. But if you’re standing in front of a speeding train, simply having a good attitude about it is not enough. I you don’t recognize the problem and move out of the way, it will get you killed.

If you lost your keys, look for them where you think you lost them, not under the light, just because it’s there.

Yes, one needs to take action to solve problems, too. Action is the ultimate power we all have. But if you get in the car and start driving before you figure out where you’re going it’s really unlikely you’ll get anywhere useful. Way too much action happens without preparation. Have you had the person who, in the middle of a meeting, with a partial understanding of the issue discussed, calls someone else on speakerphone to incorrectly inquire about it? That does not help. What this person did is waste everyone’s time and increase the confusion about the whole thing. An additional minute of attention would have been a lot more productive.

One also has to be competent in order to solve problems. Thinking you’ll survive a storm at sea (or life) based on positivity alone is likely going to end as a really sad headline. Competence, and the ability to recognize it –or the lack thereof– is a huge part of problem solving.

And lastly, one has to deliver. Real, artists, ship. Nothing has ever been solved, no progress has been made on the competence, action, and optimism of those who could have done something. Progress is only brought about by the ones who deliver it.

But none of this is nearly as important as the first step to correctly solving a problem.

The First Step To Correctly Solving A Problem

There is a quote, incorrectly attributed to Einstein², that stresses the point I’m trying to make:

Some years ago the head of the Industrial Engineering Department of Yale University said, “If I had only one hour to solve a problem, I would spend up to two-thirds of that hour in attempting to define what the problem is.”

How exactly does one solve a problem? (Uh, oh, that sounds negative, I know, let’s call it a “challenge” for a positive twist).

Here’s how real, positive problem solvers solve a challenge:

1. First, correctly identify the problem.

Problem solvers first correctly identify a challenge. Problem solvers have the positive attitude to believe it can be solved. Problem solvers are competent enough to get it done. And then, problem solvers ship.

Entrepreneurs are problem solvers. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

You can do this,