Four tools for better problem-solving
Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash
It was a dark autumn night. I was about six years old. My bedroom was in the attic of an old farmhouse in Suffolk, rumoured to be haunted. Looking out the window one night my fears were confirmed – there was my Lego trainset, floating innocently beyond the glass. Petrified, I ran to my parents’ bedroom, rushed through the door, screaming “Mum! Dad! My Lego is floating outside my window! Come quickly!”. Reluctantly my mum got out of bed, followed me back upstairs to the room, then entered as I waited outside, heart pounding. She walked over to the window, paused, then stood to one side. “Oh James” she said softly, “It’s just a reflection. Look, your Lego is still here on the floor.” “But I checked for a reflection mum, honestly I did.” I replied. This was true, I had indeed checked. And yet she seemed to be right, and once I could see the reflection with my own eyes I had to accept what she was saying. Still, I slept that night with the lights on.
Advisors are paid to find solutions to other people’s problems. We train and practice for years to hone our knowledge and gain valuable experience.
But before we even start to think about solutions, there is a prior, more fundamental question that is often missed: what is our perspective on the problem?
Like my floating Lego, our understanding is shaped by the pre-conceptions we bring to the problems we face, where we look from, who we listen to, and how we listen. By attending to our stance at the outset, we increase our capacity to discover better solutions. We serve our clients better.
Yet attending to our stance is easier said than done, for many reasons.
I’ll mention three.
First, we do not know what we cannot see, so we naturally default to our own pre-conceptions.
Secondly, most professionals are beset with “illusory superiority” - the psychological bias that over-estimates our own professional capacity. So even if we are aware of different ways of looking, we may be too invested in our own view to fully consider them.
Thirdly, real-life work engages team dynamics with multiple view-points, while resource constraints demand efficiency. Thus it is often easier – safer – to take a conventional approach, rather than strive for something better.
But for those of you who strive for better, here are four practical tools you can use to strengthen your stance when acting as an advisor.
Listen systemically
In systemic coaching we speak of three ways to listen: listening to respond, listening to understand, and listening to see what is wanting to change. Each is needed at different times. The second and third are wider, more open forms of listening, keyed into the perspective of others and the relationships between the problem and its context.
Active listening to understand engages open questions (What..? How…? Why…? etc). Active listening to see what is wanting to change engages hypothetical future enquiry (What would happen if..? How would it feel to…? If we were to…then…? etc).
In this way we can widen our perspective and see more of both problem and solution. We are listening not for our own sake, but on behalf of the client, the problem, and the potential solution.
Contrast listening to respond. When we listen to respond our remit is limited to the information needed to validate the response we want to give. As soon as we have the information we think we need, we stop listening. Many advisors default to this level of listening because it feels implicit in their role: the client asks, the advisor answers. The weakness is that the answer shapes the listening, rather than the listening shaping the answer. That’s fine for simple questions, but not much good for complex problem solving which needs to sit well with multiple priorities and values (Note to reader: if you sign up here to our newsletter you’ll receive our free guide to systemic listening)
Use a listening metaphor
Metaphors allow us to become more widely open to client, problem, and solutions. One common listening metaphor is a funnel, wide at the top for open listening, narrower at the bottom as consensus and solutions emerge from the breadth of what has entered it. Another metaphor is the baleen whale, which strains huge volumes of ocean water, sifting what is needed as it goes. You will find your own.
Metaphors can help teams work better by setting the level of listening within the group.
Leader can explain at the start of a meeting, “OK, let’s spend the next 20 minutes with our listening funnels wide open, so we can get a fuller picture of what this is all about before we even start to think about possible answers.”
Talk don’t write
Professor Robert Cialdini in his indispensable book “Influence – the Psychology of Persuasion”, dedicates a chapter to the subconscious psychological power of commitment and consistency – the human tendency to stick to and justify what we have already publicly committed to. Its effect can be particularly strong when the commitment is expressed in writing. As he explains,
“when people write something, they “experience that “magical” pull to believe what they have written.”
For this reason, once a view is expressed in writing it can be more difficult to move away from, and so the act of writing closes wider exploration of problems and solutions. Yet in a world where communication is increasingly by email or text rather oral discourse, written commitment can often arise earlier in a process than is helpful.
A useful practice is to talk not write, at least in the initial stages of problem solving. Spoken discourse is generally more amenable to widening perspective than writing, and allows us to keep minds open more easily. Sometimes of course writing something down is a useful way of testing it, but this might best be employed later in the process, or privately, to avoid the down-sides of written commitment bias.
Decide only when you need to
It’s an obvious point, but if time allows then use the time. More time gives more space for consideration. Turning away from the problem towards something else allows the subconscious to work its magic. We all know this to be true. Use it purposefully as part of your process.