Your Worst Problem

I have been working a lot lately on solving problems. At the beginning of the year there is often a lot of planning and goal-setting and hoping for what will be a great year if all of our plans and goals come to be.

The only thing is there always seems to be problems that get in the way of our goals and plans. Don’t think that you are unique in this, I have seen it at every company I have worked at and every client I have done work for. Everyone has problems. What you need is to find solutions to your problems.

Of course, that is much easier said than done in most cases. Solutions come in many different forms. You may find a software program that does the task that you need done. You may find someone in your organization with a skill that is useful in solving your problem. You may change the way you handle something so that the problem is no longer a problem. Any of these can resolve your problem, if you take a few minutes to go through 3 steps.

Step 1: Describe your worst problem.

Describing the problem seems like it is easy, but I know from experience that is not always the case. Describing a problem in a single phrase or sentence can be very hard to pin down. Ultimately you can do it though. If people aren’t getting the follow-up they expect when they call your company with a concern, your problem is either poor recording and tracking of issues, poor follow-up by customer account reps, or your employees simply don’t know where to send these concerns. Describing the problem as simply as possible will help you find a solution.

Step 2: What is your desired outcome?

Now, in the same single phrase/sentence style, describe what should be the outcome of this problem. This is your goal, what people expect. If you expect your employees to better handle customer complaints and resolve issues in a single phone call, say it. If you want your account reps to know enough about your product or service to answer more questions right away, that’s you goal. This tells you where you are headed.

Step 3: Find more than one possible solution.

Now you need to bring your problem and your outcome together, but don’t stop with the first solution you think of. Come up with several solutions, at least two or three. Then you can look at the solutions and decide which one will fit your need, your budget and ultimately your goal. If you only have resources for a cheap solution, go for it. There is no shame in having to fix something simply. If your organization is larger this become more difficult, but having options will keep you from going for a complex solution when a simple one will do, or from picking a simple solution when a more complex one may be a better fix in the long term.

Each of these steps is a very basic overview, solving problems inside organizations can take a while and much more detail, but these same steps are going to be effective.

If you have just a moment, take this quick, one question survey and let me know what your worst problem is right now, everything is anonymous and I hope to use the data for a future post. http://goo.gl/forms/i1dhYkpCrE