How To Improve Your Problem Solving Skills

I wasn’t being entirely clear…

Saturday I mentioned I was ‘off to Heathrow airport’. But I wasn’t going in any physical sense.

Huh?

Instead, I was popping to my local café to read a book by a chap called Alain De Botton.

The book was A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary

You might wonder: who writes a book about Heathrow airport?

For that matter, who reads a book about Heathrow airport!

Well, me.

You see, I love reading about altered perceptions…

Not in a ‘we all live in a Yellow Submarine’ kind of way – rather, I’m interested in looking at regular situations, systems and structures from an alternative angle.

In fact, I think it’s a very important but little considered way of developing your thought process.

You see, the ability to perceive something from a different angle lends itself perfectly to the ability to problem solve.

Problem solving is one of those skills everyone put on their CV when they were younger, but if asked for proof might now struggle to explain what justified them actually putting it there.

Thing is, if you’re no good at problem solving you’ll eventually be found out. If you can’t solve problems, as soon as you or your business hits a problem… you’re stuck.

Worse than stuck… doomed!

So, how’d you make sure you’re fully equipped to deal with any potential problem you might face?

How a luggage carousel can solve all your problems

Now, it’s often the case that to solve a particular problem, you need to admit to that old cliché and ‘think outside the box’…

What does that really mean?

It means you need to be able to look at the problem from an angle that hasn’t previously been considered.

Of course, for a lot of people that’s harder than it sounds.

I mean, how many times have you heard someone say ‘Oh, you’re always better at coming up with stuff like this,’ or ‘you’ve got a much better imagination than me’ as an excuse for not thinking any further. You might have said it yourself.

But it’s not difficult to improve your imaginative thought process.

It’s just like anything – you need to practice a little, you need to actively develop your ability to approach things from different angles.

Aha! We’re back to Heathrow airport.

By looking at regular things that we take for granted in a different way, you start to think about other things in a different way.

For example…

One thing I didn’t realise before reading De Botton’s Heathrow Diary was that when your suitcase comes off the plane it’s scanned, checked for explosives, laid on its own yellow plastic crate where it is racked in a huge hanger until a robot arm comes to collect it to be placed on the carousel…

Only then does it make its way through the plastic flap to find you waiting for it, hoping to dear God that it hasn’t broken in transit and is about to expose your imaginatively coloured underwear for your fellow passengers’ amusement.

But who knew your suitcase made such a journey between the plane and you?

Next time I’m actually at Heathrow, as I wait for my luggage, I’ll certainly be thinking about that process.

I’ll be glad that, as everyone else gets angry wondering where their luggage is, I’ll be able to see it from another angle.

It might seem like a small observation. Considering the luggage carousel of a London airport in a different light might seem a million miles from being of any use when it comes to solving a budget deficit in your business…

But by looking at something that you take for granted like this you’re able to start developing your thought process…

You start to question what else is going on behind the scenes. You start to think, if A is happening, couldn’t B also be happening?

And it is exactly this inquisitive thinking that you’ll be able to apply to your business thinking.

Yes, you might have a budget deficit. You’ll know that it’s because your expenditure is larger than your income (I hope).

But when it comes to digging deeper, when it comes to finding the problems and figuring them out – you’ll need to be able to see your business from angles that you might not have previously considered…

In just the same way you looked at your suitcase on the luggage carousel.

And by looking at problems in your business from angles you’ve never before considered, you’ll be in a much better position to tackle them and solve them.

So, this week, make it your mission to take the time to look at things a little differently. Think about all the things you take for granted and think about what’s going on behind the scenes.

You’ll notice that you’re thinking in a much more dynamic way and new ideas will soon be flooding in.

Category: Business Success