Latest / Enhance.training / 7 Steps to Improve Your Problem Solving Skills at Work

Transcript

7 Steps to Improve Your Problem Solving Skills at Work · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Improving your problem solving skills at work is critical to improving your career prospects.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every business needs and loves good problem solvers.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every business has a massive range of problems to solve each day, each week.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the more skilled their staff members are in problem solving at work, the more valuable those staff become, and the more likely they are to be promoted to solve even more challenging problems.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: The best part is everyone can become a good problem solver with practice.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Problem solvers are made, not born.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Learn effective problem solving steps and practice problem solving and you will improve.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: To help you develop good problem solving frameworks and to help you practice those skills, we're going through these seven steps to improve your problem solving skills at work.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, understand the real problem.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, find the cause of the problem.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Third, create multiple solutions for the problem.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, choose a preferred solution.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, decide who's responsible for implementing the solution.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, build reporting to track progress.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then seventh, implement the solution to the problem.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Problems are scary when we don't have the tools, frameworks, or understand the steps to solve a problem at work we are facing.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: As we gain more experience of problem solving, we recognise more problems and which frameworks or set of steps worked to solve that problem before or one like it.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The better problem solvers recognise more types of problems and have a wider range of ways to solve problems at work.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25-year management career in corporate and household names such as Innocent Drinks, Fosters, EY, and Peer Consulting, all the way through to SMEs.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, Enhanced.training shares business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And do visit us at Enhance.training and take a look at the courses and resources for you to improve your management skills and the outcome your team delivers.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most problems can be solved quickly at work because you, your colleagues or your manager come across them regularly and know the steps to solve problems being faced.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: For the new problems that no one has solved before, or for problems that have not been solved very well before, go through these seven steps to improve problem solving skills at work.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And in my view, the most important step to improve your problem solving skills is understanding the real problem.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't understand the real problem, then it is almost impossible to come up with effective steps for problem solving.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: The symptoms or issues that you're experiencing will continue.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be patient and spend as much time as you need to really understand what problem you are dealing with.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't rush this step no matter how much pressure is on you.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Get this step wrong and you'll waste a lot of time and look silly.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: When evaluating the problem, don't just rely on your colleagues or your team's opinions.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Treat their opinions as valuable starting points so you investigate the right area.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Dig into the facts and the data to get raw information on the problem.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Opinions alone are too subjective.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Find the right data and you will have an unbiased picture of what is happening.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And keep digging down and asking yourself, is this the underlying problem that's causing all of the issues that you're experiencing?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you run out of problems that are causing subsequent problems, you should have found the underlying problem.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Never take a problem at face value without investigating further and checking for underlying problems.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: A simple example of this process might be: the main problem that we are facing is we are missing our sales targets.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Digging into the sales achieved versus the targets set out by department, you discover that the customer service team has the largest gap in missed sales.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The next problem becomes our customer service team is missing their sales targets.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking to the customer service team, you discover that they don't believe they have enough selling skills.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't confident in selling, and therefore are generally not selling when they could.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: This problem then becomes our customer service team is not equipped to sell.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And after conversations with the sales, customer services, and leadership teams, the problem becomes how to train our customer services teams to sell.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is the underlying problem we need to solve.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this underlying problem looks a lot different from the initial problem we started with.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Solving the underlying problem will solve all the other problems through the chain, including the initial problem we started with.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you see this pattern and can't go any further, you've usually found the underlying problem.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The next step to improve your problem solving skills at work is to find the cause of the problem.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Once you understand the underlying problem that you need to solve, investigate and find the causes of that problem.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Causes of problems at work are rooted in decisions, actions or behaviours of individuals or teams.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't address the cause of the problem, the problems you have will keep persisting.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: A good route to finding out all the possible causes of the underlying problem is to keep asking why until you have discovered and captured all the causes of the problem.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some example why questions include why have the customer services team not been trained in selling?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why was no budget for sales training allocated to customer services?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: After training, why are the customer services teams still not selling?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just remember, there may be more than one cause to the underlying problem that you're facing.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So spend time finding all the likely causes.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The more causes of a problem you find, the better and the more robust you can design a solution, thus improving your chances of solving the problems first time round.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: The next step to improve your problem solving skills at work is to create multiple solutions.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: How many solutions to a problem you create depends on a number of factors, including firstly how much time you have, secondly, how big an impact the problem is causing, third, how complex the problem is.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, what help you have to create different solutions.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you're tracking a low impact problem without much time to solve it, don't try and create 15 different potential solutions.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of time spent to create additional solutions is very unlikely to improve the final solution sufficiently to justify the time spent.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So use your judgment.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: For problems with bigger impacts on the company results, or staff motivation for instance, make more time to create multiple solutions.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple solutions gives you choices.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can compare the pros and cons of different solutions against each other.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a challenging problem to solve, break it down into smaller, more digestible problems.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Solving lots of smaller problems is mentally much easier than solving one large problem.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And do get other people involved.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The solution creation process is a lot easier, quicker, and generates better solutions when multiple people are involved.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is because the different experiences, views, thinking processes and ideas of each person spark additional thinking, ideas, challenge and further solutions in other members of the group.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Use small teams to solve the more challenging problems.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth step is to choose a preferred solution.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Making a decision, even a bad one, is nearly always better than making no decision.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So choose your preferred solution.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: This should be the option that addresses all or most of the causes of the underlying problem.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Consider the time, resources and critical failure points of each solution when evaluating them.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Choose a solution that is most likely to be implemented or implemented well.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ensure your preferred solution has a start and an end point, and you have all the steps detailed out that need to be taken to move from the start to the completed solution.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't practically implement a solution, then it is not a solution.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And once you have your preferred solution to the underlying problem, then the next step to improve your problem solving skills is to decide who is responsible for implementing the solution.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Choose a single person to be responsible for implementing the solution.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: The person responsible does not always do all the work.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: They make sure the solution is implemented correctly and deal with problems that come up during implementation.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You should answer, firstly, who is doing what.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, when are they doing their tasks and activities?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what is the deadline for completion.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Third, what standard of work is needed?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And fourth, what resources do they have available to them?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you are the manager delegating to a team member, you will retain some responsibility to ensure that the solution is fully implemented.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: The sixth step to improve your problem solving skills at work is to build reporting to track progress.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: All parties should be clear on what a correctly implemented solution should look like when it is finished.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Before you start implementing the solution, agree how you're going to measure progress towards completion.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Keep this proportional to the importance and complexity of implementing the solution.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: For the simpler projects, agreeing the finish line and a way of tracking progress, if needed, is likely to be sufficient.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: For the larger, complex or more important projects, solving specific problems or groups of problems, build reporting to track exactly how progress is going.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Match the reporting to the critical activities being undertaken in each phase of the project implementation.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good reporting gives you visibility and a degree of control over implementation of the solution without needing to check all the detail.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So use it to spot and deal with problems that come up.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And also share reporting with key stakeholders so you limit surprises.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the seventh step to improve your problem solving skills at work is to implement the solution to the problem.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So undertake the steps, the tasks and the activities to implement the solution to the problem.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very important phase, so stay close to what is going on so you can provide support and help resolve issues that arise.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: A solution that has not been implemented is just a nice idea.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely is not a solution.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And do take a look at how to execute and get things done for more information on the implementation phase.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Improve your problem solving skills to progress your career at work.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely doesn't matter what you do, every job has plenty of problems to solve.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Improve your methods for problem solving and your problem solving skills, and you will get promoted a lot more.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Problem solving at work to a point is what makes most jobs more interesting and enjoyable.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So just to recap, the seven steps to improve your problem solving skills at work are firstly understand the real problem.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, find the cause of the problem.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Third, create multiple solutions.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, choose a preferred option.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, decide who is responsible for implementing the solution.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, build reporting to track progress.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then seventh, implement the solution to the problem.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You should use these steps to solve any problem at work.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have any questions, please drop me an email at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.