How to solve problems like an entrepreneur

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So far, I’ve worked as an accountant, corporate executive, partner in a global management consulting firm, commercial artist and entrepreneur. 

What I’ve realised is the single most important thing we can do to make a difference to how we feel about the work we do and getting the best results from our efforts is to focus on work that matters.

Doing work that matters fills you with energy, motivation and purpose.  It makes us feel alive, present and engaged.  It’s the invisible fuel that propels people and teams to achieve the amazing.

Doing work that matters means we are more willing to take risks, persist to overcome obstacles, not sweat the small stuff and learn and develop ourselves and others.

Doing work that matters means making change happen.  It means contributing to making things better.  And this starts with finding problems and developing solutions that will make things better.  

It’s how entrepreneurs think, and it’s much easier to do than you might expect.  The secret to finding and solving problems is in the sequence of how you do it and making things simple.

If you’re a leader, how many times have team members come to you and said ‘we have a problem’ but not had a well thought through solution? 

If you’re an emerging leader, have you wanted to put your hand up to tackle bigger problems to show your talent, but have kept quiet because you don’t know how to?

Here’s a three-step process I’ve developed after learning from leading entrepreneurs about how they think about and tackle problems:

Step 1:  Find the real REASON the problem exists and answer ‘is this worth solving?’

Step 2:  Define a future RESULT or improvement that is worth achieving.

Step 3:  Develop a RESPONSE which provides a solution and pathway that’s worth supporting.

Use three separate workshops or thinking sessions to focus on each step in the process.   Don’t skip ahead.   

We all tend to rush to action setting tasks and deadlines because that’s the mode we are usually in at work.  Running from meeting to meeting, striving to get the work done that’s in front of us. 

Rushing to action has a common downside as explained by Elon Musk:  

“Possibly the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimise a thing that should not exist”. 

When we rush to action, we can miss the bigger picture and waste time and money doing something we really shouldn’t be.

Entrepreneurs are successful because they spend the time to think about each problem-solving step carefully.   

As Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar said:

“There is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.”

The goal of problem solving is to make things better.  It’s doing work that matters.  And it takes just three steps.

You can download a free playbook if you’d like to learn more.

Good luck!

Craig