Jordan Diment: Why Problem-Solving Skills Are Essential for Leaders in Any Industry
Jordan Diment is a founding director of numerous companies, including Guardian Property Services. This article will look at the psychology of business leadership and why adept problem-solving skills are a crucial component.
All businesses essentially exist to solve problems in people’s lives through the provision of a particular product or service. Whether offering takeaway food or delivering life-saving medical treatment, every business was created to meet a real-world need.
In addition to solving the problems of customers, business leaders will also need to negotiate all manner of challenges within their own organisation as it grows and evolves. Common pain points in a growing company include missed targets, unmet goals and team disagreements. However, with the right tools and frameworks in place, business leaders can resolve challenging issues for both their customers and their business.
Problem-solving is the process of systematically identifying and removing barriers that hinder an organisation from achieving its objectives. Businesses remove obstacles in the lives of their customers by providing products and services. In addition, leaders can eliminate obstacles within the company, enabling teams to achieve their business goals.
Design thinking is a concept first described by Harvard Business School’s Dean Srikant Datar. In his Design Thinking and Innovation online course, Professor Datar offered a human-centric, solutions-based approach to problem-solving. Originally created for product design, design thinking is also widely used to solve internal business problems today.
The process of design thinking consists of four stages:
Clarifying the problem through research
Ideating as many solutions as possible
Developing a short list of viable and desired options before creating a plan of action or building prototypes
Implementing the strongest idea, ensuring clear communication with stakeholders about the solution’s logic and potential value
Creative problem-solving is another, less structured approach to overcoming challenges that involves following a series of exercises to explore potential solutions and develop new perspectives. This technique can be particularly effective where the root cause of the problem has yet to be identified.
In business, problems effectively occur where a gap exists between what is supposed to happen and what is actually happening. Business problems can vary significantly in terms of size, complexity and severity. The essential first step to overcoming any business problem is adequately defining it.
Overlooking or misunderstanding the true cause and nature of problems at work can lead to confusion and missed learning opportunities. In addition, misdiagnosis of business issues could lead to the wrong problem being addressed or the symptom being removed without tackling the root cause. To define the problem, leadership must assess the situation carefully, asking themselves what the problem is; measuring the gap exists between ‘What is’ and ‘What should be’; and considering when the issue was first observed. They also need to gain an adequate grasp of the size of the problem: who it affects and who it could potentially affect in the future.
Once the problem has been defined and all relevant information gathered, leadership need to identify possible causes, as well as brainstorming possible solutions. Once possible causes have been tested and all possible solutions have been explored, leadership need to make a decision, carefully monitoring the results.
All leadership roles centre around minimising the occurrence and impact of problems. To achieve this, leaders must be courageous enough to tackle issues head on before circumstances force their hand. They must also be resilient in their quest to create and sustain momentum within the organisation. Rather than regarding a problem as a distraction, great business leaders appreciate them as strategic enablers for continuous improvement, providing teachable moments and allowing organisations to identify untapped opportunities.
