Challenges

Before you start looking for ideas, you need to know what your goal is.

A successful business person pays attention to problems, converting the problems into opportunities and deciding which opportunities are worth pursuing. These opportunities become productive challenges.

Here is an exercise on learning to pay attention. Select a colour at random and spend an entire day looking for items that are that colour or contain it. Familiar objects will become new again, “reds” will become richer!

Unless you set your business problems down in writing, your attention is constantly shifting and you become indecisive about what, if anything, you should focus on. Listing problems is a way for you to decide which ones are worth solving.

Start keeping a journal of problems that you find to be personally interesting and that would be worthwhile to resolve.

It is important to give yourself a compelling, personal reason for coming up with new ideas to solve your challenges. Weigh each challenge for personal benefits before you commit yourself. The best ideas come from those hungry for success and those who cultivate the spirit of enterprise.

Before you decide which challenge to resolve, make a list of the benefits that may be gained if you are successful in developing a creative solution. Direct benefits: money, pleasure, recognition, and so on. Indirect benefits: new skills, knowledge, attitudes etc. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Which challenges would be the most rewarding to resolve? What problems or situations do you want to accept personal responsibility for solving?

After you decide the challenge, it is important to accept the challenge. The more you accept responsibility and dedicate yourself to generating ideas, the higher your probability of reaching an innovative solution.

YOUR CHALLENGE STATEMENT

The more time you devote to perfecting the wording of your challenge, the closer you will be to the solution. Conversely, the less time you take to define and centre the challenge, the greater the chances for a not-so-great idea.

Like the Sumo wrestler, shape and center your challenge. Write the statement, study it for a while, then leave it, change it, stretch and squeeze it, and restate it until you feel that the challenge is centered.

You center your challenge with questions. Questions help you look at challenges from different perspectives. Sometimes a different perspective will stretch your eyes wide open.

VARY THE WORDS. A simple technique to help you achieve different problem statements is to use synonyms or substitutes for key words in the challenge statement. The first step is to examine a particular challenge statement and identify the key words within it. Ex: Change “unique” to “surprising” and “develop” to “transform”. Making a few simple word changes may provide the stimuli for new ideas.

To keep your mind open to all possibilities, stretch your challenge by asking “why?” Asking “Why?” will help you identify your general objective and allow you to challenge your assumptions. This, in turn, enables you to redefine and shape your challenges.

By coining your challenge as broadly as possible, you put yourself on the top of the mountain from which you can view all possible approaches to the top. If you don’t look at all the possible approaches, you may preclude yourself from seeing the best route to the top.

CASE STUDY

The Shipping Industry provides an useful example of the consequences of not looking at all the approaches to solving a problem. In 1950s, experts believed that ocean-going freighter was dying. Costs were rising, and it took longer and longer to get merchandise delivered. This increased pilferage at the docks as goods piled up waiting to be loaded.

The shipping industry formulated their challenge as “In what ways might we make ships more economical at sea and while in transit from one port to another?”

They built ships that were faster or required less fuel, and reduced crew size. Costs still kept going up. They were doing things right, but they weren’t doing the right things.

A ship is capital equipment and the biggest cost is of not working. Finally, a consultant stretched the industry’s challenge to “In what way might the shipping industry reduce costs?”

This allowed them to consider all aspects of shipping, including loading and stowing. The innovation that saved an industry was to separate loading from stowing, by doing the loading on land, before the ship is in port. It is much quicker to put on and take off preloaded freight. The answer was the roll-on, roll-off ship and the container ship.

This simple solution was the direct result of reframing the challenge.

SQUEEZING THE CHALLENGE

Narrow the objective from the general to the specific by squeezing it. This makes your challenge easier to solve by reducing the area within which problem-solving takes place.

To squeeze a challenge and ascertain its strengths, weaknesses, and boundaries, ask who, what, where, when, why, and how.

WHO helps you identify individuals and groups who might be involved in the situation, have specific strengths or resources or access to useful information, and who might gain from a resolution of the problem.

WHAT helps identify all the things, objects, and items involved in the situation, the requirements, difficulties involved, rewards, and advantages and disadvantages of formulating a resolution.

WHERE considers the places, locations, and focal points of the problem.

WHEN probes the schedules, dates, and timelines of the situation.

WHY helps you reach an understanding of your basic objective.

HOW helps you recognise how the situation developed, actions that may have been attempted or are now occurring, and steps that might be taken.

SQUEEZING THE CHALLENGE FURTHER

Once you have asked these questions, go one step further — ask “how else?” and “what else?” You can almost always squeeze more out of your challenge.