Problem-solving skills: Unlocking your creative potential
The Cheesecake Factory’s behemoth of a menu reaches over 20 pages in length. While its exhaustive page count makes for abundant time-killing during awkward dinners, it also introduces many questions you never expected to answer. French or Italian? Brunch or light lunch? Breakfast or dinner? Appetizers or desserts?
Picking food from The Cheesecake Factory menu is a lot like problem-solving in the workplace—there’s a lot of unnecessary information to sift through in the decision-making process. Picking what to work on is sometimes more complicated than doing the work itself.
If you want to make your efforts as productive as possible, problem-solving is essential to assessing your situation and plotting a path forward.
Whether dealing with frustrated customers, meeting tight deadlines, or smoothing out weird team dynamics, good problem-solving clears the fog of decision paralysis to get you moving. There may not be a clear answer—that’s okay. It’s better to work on something and course-correct as you go than to panic and do nothing.
Good problem-solving skills help with:
- Prioritizing different tasks
- Managing time by breaking projects down into manageable steps
- Identifying a problem’s root cause and inventing a potential solution
- Communicating effectively
- Preparing for and preventing problems down the road
It’s not an exaggeration to say that decisive, dedicated problem-solving is key to a purposeful life. In this blog, we’ll discuss what problem-solving skills look like in action and how to develop them.
The importance of problem-solving skills in the workplace
Problem-solving is an essential soft skill for every professional. In addition to its practical usefulness, the ability to solve problems can also cultivate an environment of sincerity and honesty among coworkers. Challenges are taken seriously, and there are no stupid questions.
At work, effective problem-solving can look like:
- Figuring out why sales are down
- Simplifying expensive steps during production
- Resolving a conflict between coworkers
It’s not always easy to identify a problem. Because of their fresh, intentional approach, new hires often spot workflow breakdowns better than veterans. So, to get better at problem-solving, practice being observant like new hires. Be especially observant of what you’re unfamiliar with, and try to draw connections between outcomes and the steps leading up to them.
The role of problem-solving in innovation and success
Fixing things that go wrong is just one part of problem-solving. By tackling problems, you may stumble upon innovative new ideas.
For example, Netflix solved the problem of going to the video store by mailing DVDs to customers (and later streaming movies online). 3M created Post-Its by repurposing a glue formula that was too weak for typical applications. Fender made the modern bass guitar by adding frets for new players wanting to learn music faster.
These industry-changing products started as simple solutions to problems, but creative problem-solving has turned them into entirely new products and services.
Becoming a better problem solver opens the door to possibilities such as:
- Developing new products or alternative solutions for meeting customer needs
- Streamlining operations to do more with less
- Creating better team dynamics that boost morale
Using your imagination is rewarding, especially if it directly impacts something you’re struggling with. Learning to be more creative can improve the problem-solving process.
Developing creativity in problem-solving
You know how when you can’t remember something, the answer comes to mind when you ask someone else? A lesson to be learned here is that relaxing the right/wrong binary is crucial to being a good problem solver.
Creativity (a considerable part of problem-solving) works best when the mind is fit and relaxed, and finding that mental state takes practice.
You can practice getting into that space using the following exercises:
- Word association: Pick a random word and quickly write down any words or ideas. Don’t overthink it; write as much as you can.
- Reverse thinking: Take a problem or goal and map out how to achieve the opposite of your desired solution. Use these ideas to inspire creative solutions.
- Thirty circles exercise: Draw 30 circles on a sheet of paper. In 5 minutes, turn as many circles as possible into something recognizable (e.g., a clock, a smiley face). The harder it is to develop more ideas, the more enjoyable your ideas become.
- Story starters: Pick two unrelated words and create a short story or scenario connecting them. This forces your brain to relate disparate ideas creatively.
- Doodling: Spend 5 minutes doodling whatever comes to mind. Don’t take your pen off the paper; see what new ideas come to mind.
- Five whys: Take a problem or idea and ask “Why?” five times. This can help you dig deeper into issues and uncover insights that lead to creative solutions.
Notice how these exercises use improvisation and imagination to create many options, which aren’t very helpful for solving problems. The point is to get better at pointing your mind at a task and letting it run wild.
The more ideas you can create, the better your chances of landing on the best solution. The wilder your ideas, the more innovation potential.
The SCAMPER technique
One problem-solving technique is the SCAMPER method. SCAMPER is an acronym that prompts specific thinking about an issue and forces creative problem-solving.
Let’s pretend there’s a stack of loose paper we want to keep from being separated. Here’s what a SCAMPER approach would look like (quoting ideas from YouTuber Adriana Girdler):
- Substitute: Because paper clips may let some paper slip out, substitute a staple for the paper clip.
- Combine: Combine the strength of a staple with the ease of a paper clip. How about a bullnose clip that firmly clamps down on the stack of paper?
- Adapt: The paper clip is slippery. Coat it with rubber so that it sticks to paper while still being easy to use.
- Modify: Big stacks of paper are complicated for our paper clip, so use a larger paper clip, such as a butterfly clip, with more surface area.
- Put to another use: Paper clips can be used for things other than paper, such as lockpicks, toothpicks, and pokers.
- Eliminate: Do you even need a paper clip? Maybe not, like with this stapleless stapler, which doesn’t need metal.
- Reverse: While Adriana didn’t have an example of how to reverse-use a paper clip, one commenter suggested using combined perforated sheets to avoid the problem of loose paper altogether.
Will the SCAMPER technique always yield great new ideas? Maybe not, but it’s a step-by-step approach to help you think outside the box.
Types of problem-solving skills
Brains come in all shapes and sizes, as do problem-solving skills. The best teams use different approaches by fostering collaboration so that each team member has a chance to contribute their ideas.
Not everyone will have the same skill level or experience in problem-solving. Managers should expect to cultivate these skills through exposure to the brainstorming process.
Here are some different types of problem-solving abilities:
Analytical skills
Analyzing means breaking complex problems down into smaller, more manageable parts. For example, an analytical person might approach a failed marketing campaign by examining demographics, timeliness, and relatability data. They try to develop a big picture of which components comprise the whole and work their way down into more specific details.
Critical thinking
The movie The Matrix can be interpreted in many ways. Some see it as a story about breaking free from society’s limitations, while others see it as a literal tale about robots controlling humanity. Both are valid interpretations, and critical thinkers know how to value and consider different perspectives when finding solutions.
Creative thinking
While critical and analytical thinking involves inputs, creative thinking is more output-driven. Creative thinkers develop many solutions—some better than others—to offer a starting point for deciding whether to proceed. They may not always have the winning idea, but their thinking skills can steer things in the right direction.
Decision-making
Only some people know how to be decisive. Some people are better at presenting and critiquing ideas than selecting the right ones to pursue, so it’s good to have decision-makers on a team. Just make sure they don’t take over the creative process.
Communication skills
Some people intuitively understand what others are trying to say. These people are great at jobs like customer service because they quickly sympathize and make progress toward a solution. They also know how to adjust their words to suit different audiences.
Research skills
Finding the correct data is a profoundly underrated and essential skill. Many questions already have answers, but locating them can be a challenge. Researchers have the technical skills to sift through information and find relevant, reliable data.
Adaptability
Just because you found an answer doesn’t mean it’s right. No one loves being wrong, but being able to change course quickly makes it productive and helpful. You will abandon many, many good ideas throughout your career.
Applying problem-solving skills in different situations
A lot of problem-solving is just recognizing and acknowledging the nature of a situation. For example, if you have an unhappy customer, the fastest way to reach a lasting solution is to listen carefully and empathize with what’s happening. Once you recognize the problem, there are many ways to proceed.
Here are three different approaches to problem-solving:
SWOT analysis
You probably already know the SWOT analysis model—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to a situation. Mapping these out in quadrants can help you focus on what needs help and what doesn’t.
Mind mapping
Some people like to create visual maps of problems and possible solutions. This is called mind mapping, where a single central idea is used as a springboard to identify and connect possible tangents. FreeMind is an open-source mind-mapping app that you can use to see how it works.
Ishikawa diagram
Also known as a fishbone diagram, this helps identify possible causes of a problem by starting at the end and working backward. The problem occupies the diagram’s “head“ while its “ribs“ are the different causes of how the problem happened.
Overcoming challenges in problem-solving
Even skilled problem solvers face challenges. If you’re feeling stumped and don’t know what to do next, here are a few possible places to start looking:
- Lack of information: Sometimes, you must have all the facts. In this case, plan to gather the information required by getting help from those research-minded cohorts.
- Too many options: Remember The Cheesecake Factory? By determining which information you don’t need, you should have an easier time finding a solution.
- Emotional involvement: If you’re too close to a problem, try to step back and look at it objectively. Or ask for an outside perspective.
- Time pressure: When you’re in a crunch, start with a good enough solution first, then work toward the perfect one.
- Resistance to change: If people resist your solutions, see if your communication skills can help them understand the benefits.
- Complex problems: Unwieldy problems must be broken down into smaller, more manageable parts.
- Limited resources: Get creative about how to use what you have, or look for unconventional resources.
We’re all at different stages of understanding problem-solving strategies. Some know how to get right to the heart of the problem, while others have only just opened The Cheesecake Factory menu.
Keep looking for opportunities to try different approaches and read up on the literature to learn what you need to know.
More Resources:
Boomerang employees: Is rehiring right for your company?
Act your wage: How young workers are responding to stagnant pay
Golden handcuffs: Should employers use them on top talent?
