Businesses live and die by their ability to problem-solve. Some companies are great at it, others not so much. Excellent problem solvers tend to succeed during a crisis, formulating contingency plans that guide the business out of difficult times. Those who are not good at solving problems might struggle and fail when faced with unexpected hardships.
Fortunately, problem-solving isn’t a talent. It’s a learned skill that anyone can master. The key is to know what you’re trying to solve. A lot of us immediately jump into fix-it mode without genuinely acknowledging the whole problem. First, gain some clarity on what you’re trying to solve. Then, take the appropriate action.
Let’s take a look at the problem-solving methods that every entrepreneur should know.
Define who you’re solving for.
One of the most reliable problem-solving approaches is the design thinking technique. This process describes using a customer-centric strategy. In other words, you solve problems by acknowledging that the customer is most important. The final solution will revolve around the user’s best interests.
Some businesses solve problems from an angle of maximizing profits. However, that mentality may lead to an unsatisfactory solution for your end-users. With the design thinking approach, you have to put the user in the driver’s seat and see a problem from their eyes. This process nets you the most effective and permanent solution that keeps your customers happy.
Expand on the problem from multiple angles.
An example of a problem may be that your business has low profits. Try to find out where the issue originates. Is there overspending? Are you faced with increased competition? Or do you suffer from ineffective marketing techniques?
A problem often has a cluster of underlying factors that need to be solved. By looking at something from multiple angles, you get a full scope of how to problem-solve.
Don’t problem-solve alone.
Many business owners want to have all the answers, but the reality is no one does. The best companies aren’t run by any one individual. It’s an amalgamation of people. If you want to problem-solve something quickly and efficiently, bring in more people.
The team could be from talking to your management team or going to various departments for an assortment of seemingly random employees. When you problem-solve together, you get more ideas and more possible solutions. You also get a range of perspectives unattached to your thinking patterns.
Take every idea seriously.
During the troubleshooting process, there are no bad ideas. Write down everything. No matter how off-the-wall something might be, write it down. The more solutions you have to build from, the more likely you will come across the right one. Try to avoid judgment at this stage. Recording down ideas is the goal.
Afterward, test the ideas. Approach the solutions from predominantly a user perspective. You may discover a potential solution, but it yields new problems. Figure out how to solve those problems and sketch out what’s possible. Also, look at timeframes and costs.
As you’re doing this, slowly eliminate the solutions that aren’t going to work. Prioritize and narrow down the options to what the most logical solutions are, given the circumstances. If you are pursuing a design thinking process, you may even prototype different solutions and test them before users to gauge the reaction.
Make a business decision.
Once you’ve tested possible solutions, you’ll narrow down the ideas to the most likely-to-succeed solutions. Afterward, it’s time to make a business decision.
In decision-making, prioritizing the customer or user is critical. If you’ve crafted a well-meaning solution that works for your business but not necessarily for the customer, it’s not going to fly. What you decide to be a solution must function effectively for the end-user and without conflict.
Set up your way to measure success.
Any problem-solving method for business has to have a way to gauge success. If it’s conflict resolution, it’s more obvious how to measure the success of a solution. However, if it’s product design, you can choose to measure success through sales, feedback and surveying, brand interactions, and more. When you don’t know how to measure whether something is a clear-cut winner or failure, making improvements will be difficult.
In the final steps of problem-solving, you assign a party to carry out the plan. For some businesses, this will be the business owner. If it’s a large corporation, you may delegate a department head to do this task. Find the person most qualified and likely to succeed in applying the solution. You may have identified specific people with good ideas, good thinking, and good judgment throughout the problem-solving process. You may choose to assign the responsibility to one of these individuals as an example.
