How do you know you've got a problem?

One answer: when you know you want to do something, but you don't know what to do.

In other words, you're stuck.

'How to' is a simple yet powerful technique for unsticking your thinking.  It's very simple. This is what you do.

State the problem as a phrase beginning with the words ‘How to’.

That's it.  No other rules apply.

How does this simple technique work its magic?  In two ways. 

First, it forces you to take responsibility for the problem.  If I say “the car won’t start”, I remove myself from the problem and place it – well, in the car.  (Remember Basil Fawlty becoming so enraged with his car that he started whipping it with the branch of a tree?)  By asking “how to start the car”, I bring the problem inside my head, where I can begin to process it.

Second, by asking ‘How to’, I create the possibility of multiple answers.  I could try to start the car by turning the ignition, by pushing it, by opening the bonnet and spraying everything in sight with WD40, by calling for assistance, by borrowing another car… 

I ‘unstick’ my thinking.  Very useful.  Even if I don’t solve the problem, I feel better. At least my thinking is now moving (even if the car isn’t).

That’s ‘How to’ at its simplest.  Frame the problem as a ‘How to’ and then think of as many ways of doing the task as you can. 

 

‘How to’ as a way of exploring a problem

We can also use ‘How to’ to explore a problem more richly.  Rather than thinking up lots of potential courses of action, we can think up new ways of looking at the problem itself.

Consider: why are you stuck?  Perhaps it’s because you are looking at the problem in only one way.

All of our thinking begins with assumptions.  Unchallenged, those assumptions become fixed as mindsets.  It’s the mindset – set rigid, like concrete sets – that makes us stuck. 

‘How to’ helps us to break the mindset.  And to do that, we need to find new ways of expressing the problem: new ‘How to’ statements. 

Take the problem of how to start the car.  How could we express the problem in different ways?

How to get the car to move.

How to move the car.

How to turn the wheels of the car.

How to move the car without turning the wheels.

How to move without using the car.

How to get reach our destination without moving.

How to avoid the need to reach our destination.

How to bring the destination to us.

 

'How to' with teams

‘How to’ sessions are an invaluable way of helping a team to unlock its thinking. Here’s an example from a brainstorming session I ran for store managers in a leading national retailer. 

One of the group’s most persistent and frustrating problems was the failure of their briefings.  Store managers were issued with monthly briefs by senior management, which they were required to ‘cascade’ to their teams.  Typical comments were: “They just won’t listen”; “they’re not interested”; “they bother me with dozens of questions afterwards, even though the brief answered them all”.

Our first ‘How to’ was:

“How to make team briefings more effective”.

This rapidly expanded to include:

How to make my team listen

How to present the brief more interestingly

How to make team briefings more interesting

How to stop people asking stupid questions at the end of the brief

How to handle team members’ concerns more effectively

How to change the format of the brief

How to talk with my team rather than at them

How to turn the briefing into a more meaningful meeting

How to involve the team more

In all, we generated over seventy new statements.  The result was a rich set of ideas for transforming team briefings into more interactive and productive meetings. 

The session also identified a number of mindsets among the store managers themselves. One of their most powerful assumptions was that they felt they had to read the issued brief verbatim.  This created instant boredom in their teams and undermined their credibility as leaders.  Yet nobody had ever thought to challenge this simple assumption.

 

Variations on ‘How to'

You can play variations on 'How to’.  Here are three.

 

Shifting perspective

Shift perspective on the problem to gain new views of it.

Shift forwards by asking: “What do we need to do to achieve that?”  For the new ‘How to’, repeat the question and gain others. 

Shift backwards by asking: “If we had solved the problem, what bigger problem would it solve?”  Note this as a new ‘How to’ and repeat as necessary.

 

Identifying different points of view

Think about all the people affected by the problem.  How would they see it? What 'How to' would they use to define it? Consider:

• colleagues
• other managers
• senior managers
• users
• customers
• suppliers
• other departments

Collect all these new 'How to' statements and add them to your pile.

 

Factoring the problem

What factors contribute to the problem?  Consider