Tag Archives: solutions

Problems vs. Solutions vs. Complaints

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Problems vs. Solutions vs. Complaints

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you see a problem, tell someone. But, also, tell them how you’d like to improve things.

Once you see a problem, you have an obligation to seek a solution.

Complaining is telling someone they have a problem but stopping short of offering solutions.

To stop someone from complaining, ask them how they might make the situation better.

Problems are good when people use them as a forcing function to create new offerings.

Problems are bad when people articulate them and then go home early.

Thing is, problems aren’t good or bad. It’s our response that determines their flavor.

If it’s your problem, it can never be our solution.

Sometimes the best solution to a problem is to solve a different one.

Problem-solving is 90% problem definition and 10% getting ready to define the problem.

When people don’t look critically at the situation, there are no problems. And that’s a big problem.

Big problems require big solutions. And that’s why it’s skillful to convert big ones into smaller ones.

Solving the right problem is much more important than solving the biggest problem.

If the team thinks it’s impossible to solve the problem, redefine the problem and solve that one.

You can relabel problems as “opportunities” as long as you remember they’re still problems

When it comes to problem-solving, there is no partial credit. A problem is either solved or it isn’t.

Image credit: Pixabay

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A Simple Idea to Save Oil

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Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.

Here is a great marketing campaign from S-Oil in South Korea which took the challenge of finding ways to decrease oil consumption in South Korea and turned it into a marketing campaign:

In this case the solution highlighted in the video is one potential solution of many to the challenge of decreasing oil consumption, and is focused on reducing the amount of oil consumed searching for a parking spot.

The one thing I didn’t understand was why “HERE” was in English instead of Korean characters… (NOTE: I had to replace the video and the new one is in English)

But anyways…

What simple solution is hiding under your nose?


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Improving Education for 20 Cents a Student

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I love examples of simple, inexpensive solutions that solve important problems. Solutions like the water bottle light, the gravity light, etc., and Mike Freeston was kind enough to send this most recent example that I will share with you today. Thank you Mike!

The video details the work of a Non-Governmental Organization (aka NGO), that was created as a Community Service Center for marginalized families in rural areas an urban slums. It’s called Aarambh, and they wanted to help students who don’t even have the basic facilities, to be more comfortable and productive at school.

Most schools in rural India have two basic problems:

  1. Schools don’t have proper desks, which leads to poor eyesight, bad posture and bad writing.
  2. Students don’t have school bags.

Aarambh came up with a solution which tackled both these problems with a single, thoughtful design.

Aarambh came up with a design for portable desks made using discarded cardboard boxes (aka cartons). This choice for raw materials is both economical, and easily available. The stencil design, when cut and folded, creates a desk suitable for use by students whom must sit on the floor AND it also can serve as a school bag.

Brilliant!


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Harnessing the Global Talent Pool to Accelerate Innovation

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In this webinar hosted by Innocentive I explore how organizations can utilize open innovation and crowdsourcing resources as an essential talent management strategy to drive their business.

You can engage me to create a webinar or white paper for your audience here.

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Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 11, 2012

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“Framing and reframing the right problem is perhaps the most important attribute of success. No pain (problem), no gain (solution).?”

– Sanjiv Karani

“You must find a way to create resource flexibility. Organizations that want to continue to grow and thrive must staff the organization in a way that allows managers to invest a portion of their employees’ time into promising innovation projects.”

– Braden Kelley

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

– Peter Drucker

What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

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Innovation Can Come From Anyone

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Innovation Can Come From Anyone“Innovation can come from anyone, but it is required from everyone for an organization to remain successful.”

Or taken another way:

“Innovation can come from anywhere, but you must be looking everywhere to find it.”

Innovation comes from good listening, observing, watching, waiting, connecting, and synthesizing.

Innovation comes from the creation of a unique, differentiated customer insight that you can build your ideation, your experimentation, your collaboration, and your commercialization efforts around. The goal of course is to turn that unique, differentiated insight into solutions valued above every existing alternative. Solutions that not only create value, but that you also stand ready and able to help people access and understand the need for and relevance in their life.

It is because innovation can come from anywhere and can involve everyone in the organization in making innovation happen that I created The Nine Innovation Roles and my innovation value framework, to help people make sense of what is necessary to make innovation successful as they form their innovation project teams and process, and to give people a simple framework to hold close as they think about creating innovation success.

I hope you’ll check out both of these and let me know what you think!

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