Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome back to Success with Srini. Happy Saturday morning to you on the podcast. Today I’m answering a question again, from a listener of my radio show Srini. Recently, I got promoted, and now I have become a director. After a long time, I got this promotion. Earlier, I was an individual contributor for a long time. And I went from being an individual contributor to a director. Now I have multiple teams reporting to me. The reason why I’m reaching out to you is a while ago, I heard you talk about problem-solving on a radio show. I struggle with solving problems, specifically when it comes to other people. With so many people reporting, I am uncomfortable. And I think this is going to be a challenge for me. This keeps me awake at the night. I wanted to touch base with you and see what can I do to overcome this fear?
Okay, before I answer this question, I want to say that I did respond to this question already, to this gentleman. I’m recording this podcast because I want this question to be available to every subscriber of this podcast. So I want to make it perpetual. Now, this specific radio show where I talked about problem-solving, was from 2017. That was the only time I did a show on problem-solving. I don’t recollect ever doing any other shows, certainly not a podcast. So this gentleman was listening to me at that point in time, I don’t think they even know that I have a podcast now. So coming back to the question, problem-solving the problems that are well defined, that easy to solve problems that are ill-defined that are difficult to solve. Very simple formula. So a part of our existence even though we encounter problems, we need to, define the problem clearly in our minds. So sometimes we are presented with a problem. Sometimes we find a problem, or a problem finds us on its own. Sometimes we create a problem. So at any point in time, either you’re celebrating a moment where you solved a problem, or you are a little bit pensive and sad that you created a problem or you found yourself in a problem, all of us. So ideally, what we want is we want a structural ending to our problems.
Now, a structural ending of a problem happens only when we define it. Because ill-defined problems, never have a structural learning, well-defined problems do have a structural ending. So I want to differentiate these two ill-defined problems, let’s take let’s look at an example. Let’s say you are at work and you want to go home, and suddenly your car breaks down. That is a problem right there. That’s an inconvenience. But it is a well-defined problem. Because you know that you can now take a taxi or Uber. And you can get home, you know, where you’re going, you know how much time it takes, all you have to do is change one variable, which is your car. So in a way, it’s a well-defined problem. Now, an ill-defined problem is, let’s look into an example. For this. Let’s say you want a partner, a life partner, or a business partner from a state that has an example. Now, even though you know what the ending is going to be, somehow you don’t know the criteria, what kind of a partner you need, and becomes convoluted. And unless you really don’t define, you know, what kind of a life partner you need at least some image in your mind, it’s difficult for you to pursue. Now, every time something becomes difficult, like for example, an ill-defined problem it could end up with multiple solutions. So an ill-defined problem has many solutions, which one is going to work for you. You see. So, you know oftentimes in life, we make unwarranted assumptions Okay, in everyday problems. So, my message to you is, if you have a problem, what can define it? All the question now becomes how do I define a problem?
Many many years ago back in 1980, somewhere in the early 80s. Heins, Steinberg, Bransford, and Stein. These four authors came up with a book titled, The Ideal Problem Solver. One of the early books on problem-solving, and ever since many people have written, and there is a lot of literature available on problem-solving, but they came up with a simple formula. They said, first of all, recognize the problem, and spend a lot of time recognizing the problem. So this gentleman sending me this, this email in itself. So there is some leadership in this gentleman. So he got promoted from being an individual contributor to a director. So I think I think he’s hard on himself. And I said that in the immediate email, I responded back by saying, You’re hard on yourself, the reason why you got promoted is that your managers, your management sees something that you are not able to see about yourself. So they know that you, you can lead people, they know that you’re a problem solver, that this is your impression of yourself, and it may not carry any merit, because you got promoted, and you got promoted after a long time, that means they know you, they have seen you, they have evaluated you. And this is a reward, not a punishment, that was my response to him. So you recognize the problem. The second thing you have to do is you got to define and represent the problem mentally. And then you need to spend time developing a solution strategy for this problem. And then you got to organize your knowledge, whatever knowledge you have, and all of our knowledge is scattered, it’s all over the place. We got to organize the knowledge base about the problem, then we start allocating resources, mental, physical, emotional, financial, whatever it takes to solve the problem. And then once we have allocated that means now these resources are in play that working towards solving the problem, that means that once that happens, we start to monitor the progress. And see whether we are able to get to the goal. And then keep on evaluating the solution. And accordingly, keep on making changes. Now all this is defined in this book, as the ideal problem solver. Now, I think this book is available online.
Last time, many years ago, I saw it was now there are different models, and I’m just sharing one of the models with you. But every problem, there are a couple of things you need. One is you need operators when dealing with a problem. So what are some of the operators that you can play with? And then you need to identify the constraints as you’re trying to solve a problem. So if one solution doesn’t work, you need to change the solution. And see, okay, in the last solution, I had two operators and five constraints now can I reduce those constraints and increase the operators, whatever, right. So you kind of keep on shifting and changing till you get to the solution that works the best. So this was the show, these were some of the notes that I was sharing. But to close it out. I also want to mention that it’s important for you to understand the initial state of the problem and the end goal. So what is the initial state? And what is the end goal, and everything happens in between? So these two things have to be understood. If these two things are missed, or not understood, well, then again, this whole thing becomes an ill-defined problem. And now you have many solutions. In this book, the ideal problem solver. Heins, Steinberg, Bransford. And Stein, they talk about, they make an interesting point, says academic knowledge or academic success doesn’t mean that you can take that and you start applying to real-life scenarios. So people who can solve economic problems cannot solve real-life problems. It’s complete before it was the assumption. But now we know that’s not the case. So you know, you can’t have a bookish approach. And you can’t say that you were a great problem solver, in college, in school, and whatever. Now you can solve any problem because you have had success before none. As we grow. And as we start seeing life more and more, the problem tends to become more and more complex. And some of the problems that are invisible today become more visible as we age and grow.
So there isn’t a formula that says I could solve the problem 10 years ago, I can solve it now. And that is why I said that problem solved. is an increasingly complex skill that we need to pursue. And there is no ending to it. We keep on, you know, developing ourselves. And the more we live, the more we’ll encounter, and the more we have to accumulate. Hopefully, this is helpful. Hopefully, I did justice to the question. Hopefully, you got some value out of this. If it is, let me know. You’re watching this on YouTube. You’re listening to this on a podcasting app. There should be a place for you to write a comment and rate and all that and that’s all for now. I didn’t want this to become longer and more complex for a Saturday. But enjoy your weekend and I will catch up with you tomorrow, right here. Thank you.