Increase Serendipity in Your Problem Solving
Problem-solving skills sometimes show up in the oddest moments. This weekend, my husband and I took our 6- and 9-year-old children skiing in Vermont. At dinner on our last night, we were given two plastic containers with which to bring home our leftovers.
My daughter had leftover caesar salad and pasta with marinara sauce. My son had a fair amount of fries worth keeping. The containers were plenty big and we didn't want to use more plastic by asking for a third container.
You might be calculating in your head which of the three food items above would be least ruined by touching the others, like I did. I pictured two piles in my daughter’s container - a pasta pile and a salad pile.
Then I said to myself "If only there was a way to keep those two piles separate inside the container."
Just then I watched as my son poured his fries into his container. Underneath the fries was a piece of wax paper. Click! went something in my brain.
“Let's use this piece of wax paper to separate your pasta and salad, Kelly.” I said to my daughter.
Apparently, after 12 years of marriage, I still have the ability to impress my husband as he replied, "Wow, you're amazing! How did you come up with that?"
I just shrugged. "It's just how my brain works."
"No, I really want to know. Did you scan the table looking for something to use to separate the foods?" he asked.
"Not really," I said. "I asked the question and then the solution was just right in front of me."
"That's fascinating," he said.
"It happens to me a lot, actually" I said smugly.
Smugness aside (and let me tell you there are plenty of times when I don't impress my husband!), let's break down what worked about this problem solving technique.
1. I asked an open-ended question to which I didn't yet know the answer.
"How could these two things be kept separate in the container?"
We don't realize how often our questions stay in the realm of answers we already think we have. Good, creative problem solving requires you to ask questions that bring you outside of the solution set that you can currently see. I sometimes describe it as “shining a flashlight into the dark corners.” The question above is not that different from something like:
"What will our path forward as a team look like given that the trust was lost between two members?"
or
"How do I as the leader articulate the current crossroads at which our organization finds itself?"
Or
“How do we keep these two initiatives distinct in our minds so that our clients are clear?”
2. I held the question. In my case, I only had to hold the question for a few seconds. Sitting with a question feels like a "limbo state" and isn't the most comfortable. But if you take a question with you in your back pocket, so to speak, as you journey through your days, then the answer just might jump out at you.
Separating two food groups in a take-out container is an inconsequential problem, of course, but the methods here apply universally. If you ask an open question and hold it with you, when a match between question and solution appears, you'll hear a "ding ding ding" in your head!
