"Thinking through Problem Solving" by Valarie A. Washington

Change hits hard, fast, and often. It shifts our focus, changes our direction and alters our plans. Change leaves us stumped by the questions we are not prepared to answer and searching for questions that we never thought to ask. Left on the road, between what we were once sure of and the indecision of which way to go; a problem waits to be solved. Hearing the word problem, we automatically think of some catastrophic event requiring kick-off meetings, project teams and an all-out hunt for the illustrious root cause. Usually however, problems are much more subtle than that. They move in quietly, riding the coattails of change or they drag change along, bringing it to our doorsteps. Problems both follow and precede change. Most problems don't need a grand introduction. All we need to do is to look for them, wait for them and prepare for them. There are always there, just beneath the surface. And before they ever took a life of their own, even those problems with the deepest roots started simply enough as an unanswered question. What issues currently have your organization tied up in knots? What was the last problem that you attempted to solve? What was the last problem that you ignored? This manifisto is intended to dispel the myth that problems need official-sounding names and formally outfitted team leaders wearing colored belts. Problems are not only exposed through formal processes but are revealed in a moment of curiosity. Just around the corner of expectation and intersection of “why; why not; and if not me, who?” is a chance for every employee to positively influence the course of events.