Making Problem Solving a Founder Superpower

Understanding the difference between "problems to solve" and "problems to work on" is a vital skill that will save you & your team time, energy and headspace.

Founders are naturally drawn to solving problems. Creating a business from nothing means spotting and solving problems on repeat.

I often talk with founders about the distinction between “problems to solve” and “problems to work on”.

Problems to solve are the ones where you can identify and treat root causes. With focused analysis and decisive action in response, you can make changes and the problem goes away.

Problems to work on are those where you'll never reach a final resolution. They're open-ended, wicked issues that lack clear root causes and perfect solutions.

When dealing with a problem to work on, rather than aiming for a permanent resolution, your goal is to apply sustained effort to continuously make incremental progress on the issue.

Things go awry when leaders mix up the two types of problems.

Treating a problem to work on like it can be solved for good just leads to wasted effort, often creating a load of undesirable unintended consequences for the business.

So how can you identify what type of problems you're facing?

For more straightforward, solvable problems, you'll find the constraints, rules and parameters tend to be relatively stable and well-understood. Often the problem is confined to a single process, system or team.

There'll be a lot that seems familiar. People in the business will be able to reference previous experience and patterns from their prior work as they get to the bottom of what's going on.

But if trying to map out the causes, effects and dependencies for a particular problem makes your head spin, it's likely it's a problem to work on.

These tend to be highly complex, with many inter-related factors and stakeholders involved. They're pretty resistant to linear cause-and-effect analysis. The terrain keeps continually shifting as new variables and unexpected obstacles emerge over time.

These require sustained, iterative effort rather than a one-and-done fix.

Mixing up the two types is where a lot of effort can be wasted. Founders deploy scarce time and attention on finding the elusive "solution" when in reality no such fix exists.

If this is your thing, there's a great book called Bullet-Proof Problem Solving by Charles Conn & Robert McLean that I recommend. It's on my must-read list for anyone that wants to get serious about the business of solving problems.

It lays out a practical but systematic approach for solving solvable problems.

A common pitfall, is to define the actual problem accurately but then failing to get to a true root cause. A lot of the hard work is in identifying the underlying drivers behind the problem rather than just addressing surface-level symptoms.

Founders often tend to jump toward solutions, missing out those early steps. And then they try to weigh-up the suitability of their hastily defined solutions without taking notice of the natural biases we all have.

That's understandable from a founder perspective where the success of the start-up depends on being able to bash through problems at pace. But choosing the right approach for the type of problem is a crucial step.

In my work I've also taken a deep dive into the psychological aspects that influence how founders tackle these different types of problems. We're all human and our brains aren't the rational predictable machines some people like to pretend they are.

Cognitive Bias

One key factor to consider is cognitive bias. Our minds have innate tendencies and shortcuts that can lead us astray when problem-solving, especially for complex, open-ended problems.

Confirmation bias, for instance, is the tendency to seek out and heavily weight information that confirms our existing beliefs or hypotheses about a problem, while discounting contradictory evidence.

This can cause founders to overlook key factors or jump to premature conclusions, compounded by their desire to crack on and get the issue resolved.

We often rely too heavily on the first piece of information we receive about a problem to make subsequent judgments. This "anchor" can be difficult to dislodge even in the face of new contradictory data. Becoming overly anchored to initial assumptions can severely limit our ability to see the full picture.

One of the main drivers of confirmation bias among founders is being exposed to a limited range of information and viewpoints. To counter this, actively seek out dissenting or contrasting perspectives. Ask the person who's most likely to disagree with you and probe behind their reasoning rather than trying to change their mind.

Problems to work on tend to involve many interrelated variables and stakeholders.

Framing Effects

This level of situational complexity can open the door to framing effects. That's where the way the problem is first presented ("framed") can significantly influence the solutions we come up with. A subtle difference in framing can lead teams to view the same problem through completely different lenses.To tackle this try working with others to put together multiple ways of framing the problem. Don't just accept the initial way a problem is framed and actively solicit different perspectives on how the problem could be described.

Getting different team members to independently frame the issue in their own words helps minimise groupthink. It can also reveal biases when you compare how problems are framed by different people.

For example one person's framing of a problem might be people-centric while another may see it through a commercial lens. Neither's necessarily right or wrong, but the difference may lead to new perspectives.

Sometimes the way a problem is framed often contains implicit assumptions that shape how it's perceived. I recommend you critically examine and make explicit any unstated assumptions that are behind a particular framing. This helps open up alternative perspectives.

Group dynamics also play a big psychological role in how people come together to solve problems, especially for protracted problems to work on that need sustained collaboration over time.

Phenomena like groupthink, where the desire for consensus can override a critical evaluation of alternatives, can also make a hit on effective problem-solving.

Conflicts and power dynamics within teams led to perspectives being marginalised, especially when the latent power of the founder is a factor in the group's interactions.

Explicitly assigning "Devil's Advocates" to provocatively critique proposed solutions is another valuable approach to reducing biasing effects. Getting someone to deliberately play that role can challenge unspoken assumptions and open up fresh perspectives.

At its core, effective problem-solving for founders means a good dose of self-awareness. Without it founders can easily fall victim to the psychological pitfalls that can derail even the most well-intentioned efforts.

Self-aware founders recognise they don't have all the answers. They appreciate the limits of their own perspective and consciously work to counteract their blind spots. This openness allows them to seek out divergent viewpoints, especially from those most likely to disagree with their initial gut reactions.

Embrace Discomfort of Ambiguity

Rather than becoming anchored to knee-jerk solutions, self-aware founders embrace the discomfort of sitting with ambiguity. They resist rushing to simplistic either/or responses for complex issues.

They ask powerful questions that challenge their own assumptions and reframe their understanding of the problem's dynamics.

Cultivating this mindset is an ongoing practice.

It demands that founders learn to continuously reflect on their own thought processes and question their default mental models. The most self-aware founders appreciate that the most wicked problems they face are really "problems to work on" rather than "problems to solve".

There is no end-state. In reality there's a constant iterative cycle of taking action, gathering feedback and evolving their approach.

This mindset can liberate founders from the exhausting pursuit of permanent solutions. It helps keep them oriented towards incremental progress over time. Each step forward generates new insights that enhance their self-awareness and inform what comes next.

The most self-aware founders don't just tackle the problems in front of them. They focus on what's within - by developing the meta-skill of learning how to become better problem-solvers themselves. That commitment to ongoing self-discovery gives them the problem solving superpower they seek.

Founders, it begins with you!