Five years ago, Ken Watanabe, a Harvard MBA who worked at
one of the world’s leading consulting firms, walked away from a
lucrative career to write a children’s book. He was alarmed that
school-age kids in his native Japan were good at memorizing large
amounts of information but not very effective at applying it to
real-life situations. He wanted to teach them in a fun way to
broaden and organize their approach to problem solving and become
more proactive in shaping the world.
But something unexpected happened. Watanabe’s 110-page book became
a phenomenon among adults in Japan... and the country’s
best-selling business book of the year. Since then, it’s been
published in a half-dozen countries around the world, including,
most recently, the US.
Bottom Line/Personal spoke to Ken Watanabe about his
secrets to problem solving...
THE THREE STEPS
Good problem solving isn’t an innate talent. It comes from a way of
thinking using a set of techniques that you can practice and
improve upon. Most people rely too much on their instincts when
they try to solve a problem, especially when they feel flustered or
overwhelmed. They tend to grasp at the first or second solution
that pops into their heads, even if it doesn’t seem completely
adequate.
I developed a simple, structured approach that works for addressing
almost any kind of problem, big or small. In fact, I’ve used the
same approach helping my Fortune 500 company clients as I do trying
to fix the pepper shaker in my kitchen.
Step 1. Identify your problem and the root difficulties
causing it. People tend to think about their
situations in such vague, universal terms that they get
overwhelmed.
Example: You feel stressed and
unhappy because you never have enough money each month. Stress and
unhappiness are symptoms, not underlying problems that you can take
action to remedy. You have to analyze more deeply. Is the actual
problem that you’re not earning enough money? Or is it that you’re
spending too much each month? To identify problems, I find it
helpful to think of myself as a doctor trying to cure a patient. I
list potential causes for a problem, arrive at a hypothesis for the
most likely cause and focus on addressing that cause.
Step 2. Come up with multiple solutions. List
as many as you can, no matter how improbable. This often leads you
to creative and unexpected solutions. Even if you think a
particular solution may be the right one, get into the habit of
challenging this conclusion. Ask yourself,
What are the
shortcomings of this solution? Is there a better
way?
Step 3. Prioritize your actions and implement a
plan. After you select a solution, you need to follow
through on it and be prepared to modify it -- or replace it --
until the problem is resolved.
MY FAVORITE TOOLS
I find that jotting down my thoughts and creating graphic
representations of them are essential to breaking down problems
into manageable parts and making sure that I explore every possible
avenue...
The Logic Tree. This is useful for clarifying
your problem and its root causes.
How it works: Start with your
problem in a box on the left side of a piece of paper. Ask "why?"
you have that problem. For each answer, draw an arrow to the right,
and put it in a box. Now ask "why?" for each of the answers in the
boxes. Keep repeating the process until you have identified all of
the possible root causes of the problem.
The Logic Tree also can help you brainstorm a variety of solutions
to a problem after you’ve identified the root cause.
Example: Say that you have
determined that the root cause of your money problems is that you
don’t track your spending well enough.
Pros and cons box. This is useful for
evaluating which competing solutions are the best ones. The box
allows you to line up and compare the benefits and drawbacks of
possible solutions at a glance.
How it works: Draw three columns.
Label the first "Possible Solutions," the second "Pros" and the
third "Cons." List each solution, and fill in its corresponding
pros and cons. You can further refine the process by marking each
pro and con entry using a star system. Three stars is very
attractive or very unattractive depending on whether it’s in your
pro or con list, two stars is moderately attractive/unattractive,
one star is marginally attractive/unattractive.
Count the stars. If they are in the pro column, more stars are
good. If they are in the con column, more stars are bad.
MY PEPPER SHAKER PROBLEM
I had an expensive new pepper shaker that I had to shake and shake
over my food just to get enough pepper out. It was a small problem,
but one that annoyed me almost every day. I thought about throwing
it out and buying a new pepper shaker, but that seemed like a
waste. I decided to find out whether thinking through the problem
in a structured way would allow me to find a more satisfying
solution. A pepper shaker, of course, is trivial in the scheme of
things, but the process used to solve the pepper shaker problem can
solve any problem.
In this case, identifying the problem was easy -- I wasn’t getting
enough pepper from my pepper shaker.
Possible root causes...
I need too much pepper on my food. I rejected
this because I really like pepper on my food and didn’t want to
change my preferences. My tastes were not the issue.
I wasn’t shaking the shaker long enough or hard
enough. I dismissed this cause, too, because I felt
that giving one or two vigorous shakes should be
sufficient.
The small openings on the top of the pepper shaker were too
small. Yes, this seemed like the most reasonable
cause. I decided to pursue this line of thought and develop
solutions.
Possible solutions...
Buy a new pepper shaker with larger
openings. I had already rejected the idea of buying a
new one.
Increase the amount of pepper that was coming out of the
shaker. Yes, this seemed promising, but how to do
it?
I had to continue generating more refined solutions.
Possible refined solutions...
Increase the number of holes in the shaker by
poking more of them. I didn’t want to do this, because it would
ruin the look of my nice pepper shaker.
Make each existing hole bigger. No, again for
the same reason.
Use more finely ground pepper. Yes, that
seemed like the smartest, most practical idea.
I then put the solution into action. I called the store to check
whether it carried finely ground pepper -- it did. I stopped by the
store on the way home from work.