We Are More Than Ready

Our problems are no match for our strengths.

-- doug smith

How to Analyze Root Cause Using Mind Maps

The Five Why's is a famous and useful tool for conducting a root cause analysis in problem solving. I've applied the idea of asking why five (more or less) times to get at the root cause and applied it to mind mapping. Since many problems have more than one cause, applying the process to a mind map keeps the door open for identifying many possible causes. While any one may appear to be the root cause, it is only in comparing all of them that you can clearly see the best opportunity. Here's the process that I use:

1. Start your mind map by writing your problem in the center. (In the example above, Stairway Accidents is the problem.)
2. Radiat out reasons why there is a problem. What are the causes? What causes that cause? ("what causes" is as useful as "why" and without the emotional turmoil.)
3. For each cause, ask why it's true or what causes it. Why that cause? What causes that - and radiate out your answers.
4. Some "what causes that" may produce more than one response. This is another reason why the mind map approach works so well. Simply branch out more causes.
5. If a cause emerges as too expensive to solve at present, place a dollar-sign on that trail. More dollar signs, if you like to embellish, for even more expensive causes to fix. 
6. If a cause appears only manageable and not within your influence to solve, put an "X" at the end. You may choose to avoid attempting to solve these.
7. The most likely cause behind it all AND one within your influence and budge to solve, draw a double line path and put a star at the end. This is your best solution opportunity.
8. Create a dotted circle around the original problem circle. Write your goal or key action/focus in this new surrounding circle.

Build, Not Break

It's risky to ascribe motives to a problem. A problem is a situation, not an intention. And yet, we often do, don't we? We think of a problem with a personality out to do us harm. We can even think that a problem is out to break us, to wear us down until we don't matter. That is not true. The problem - the situation - does not care. When we pause to identify the goal that we want, instead of focusing on the problem, we can identify ways to achieve that goal and build our way out of trouble and into success.

A problem does not need to break you.

Problems are meant to build you, not break you.

-- doug smith

Go Beyond Analysis

Do you enjoy analyzing a problem? I can analyze all day long. It is useful, and it's even satisfying. But it does not solve the problem. Problems are persistent and do not care about your analysis. To fix a problem, we've got to do something.

Your problem will probably survive analysis. Do more.

-- doug smith

Leadership Call to Action:

Think about a problem that you have been analyzing recently. If you have not already done so, write down all the possible causes of that problem.

What is your next step beyond analysis? What part of that step can you do this week?

Create Agreements First

The more we disagree on a problem the more our behaviors begin to resemble each other's. Why not take this as an invitation to start creating agreements?

-- doug smith

What if Your Solution Is a Problem?

It's discomforting to realize when our solution is someone else's problem - but their problem remains our problem until our solutions agree.

-- doug smith

Conceive and Then Believe

Conceiving a problem solution is about half as critical as convincing ourselves that the solution will work.

Until we are convinced, how will the solution ever work?

How do we become convinced? By carefully conceiving of the best possible solution.

Centered problem solvers take the time to get beyond the surface problem to the heart of the goal.

-- doug smith

Ending Destruction

How do we end a destructive player's destruction without destroying the play is the key problem embedded in diplomacy, crime, and war.

Impossible to solve? Then we manage. Impossible to manage? Then it must be solved.

-- doug smith

Be Careful of Paradox Attachment

You can embrace a paradox without making it your pet.

Observe. Learn. Release. Grow.

-- doug smith

Manage, or Solve Rather Than Ignore

We can't afford to avoid problems just because they're hard.

-- doug smith

Centered Problem Solvers Detach

Do problems spark an emotional reaction in you? Sometimes, they do in me. Then guess what -- I've got the problem AND the emotional reaction. That does not help and it does not solve the problem.

Attaching yourself to a problem just makes it bigger.

Step back, detach, depersonalize, and breathe. That problem is not you after all. That problem is either manageable or solvable. Find out which and get started.

-- doug smith

Room to Grown

I suppose that if a problem is easy to solve that it isn't even a problem. Just solve it and be done with it. A problem like that is more like a decision than a problem.

We all have bigger problems than that, though. We all struggle at times to solve what feels like an unsolvable problems. Some problems truly can't be solved, and must then be managed. How can we tell the difference?

We need to ponder the possibilities. We need to change the problem into a goal and figure out how to bring that about. The difficulty is like a framework for building something we haven't thought of before. The problem stands there, a form waiting to redirect our notions of what is possible.

Tough or not, solvable or not, a problem creates a space for traction.

A problem you can't solve is give you room to grow.

Grow.

-- doug smith

Work to Understand

Jumping to solutions does not work. Faking it until you make it does not make it. Problem solving takes a centered, reasoned, analytical discipline combined with a creative and courageous mind. Put in the work.

It does no good to pretend to understand a problem. Work hard enough to truly understand.

-- doug smith

Drain That Problem of Its Power

Powerful problems not only get in the way, they can wrap themselves so tightly around you that you feel both constrained and defined. Not what you want.

And not a certainty. Solve the problem, solve the image issue.

Centered problem solvers do not allow problems to define them. Staying detached, staying focused, working to solve those pesky problems.

A problem has no power to define you once it's solved.

You know what to do.

-- doug smith

Find the Flaw In Your Thinking

How does it feel like when your mind is foggy? For me, fogginess happens when there are an overwhelming number of choices, or possibilities, or the problem seems to cut so deep that only a tourniquet will help. Fogginess can also come from incomplete thinking - we stop at a place that makes sense to our unseen bias, and move forward without looking for other facts.

Flaws in our thinking develop when our thinking is misdirected (it was true about something else so it must be true about this), polluted (that advertisement is just SO convincing), corrupted (it might not be exactly right but it's good for me), and any of dozens of factors that fog our thoughts.

The flaw that blocks you knocks you off center. The flaw that deceives you leaves you without a real solution.

Find the flaw in your thinking while you can still find it, or the problem is yours to keep.

-- doug smith

Disentangle

To disentangle and detach from an emotion that's tied to a problem, first understand the problem.

-- doug smith