Reframing the Issue

There’s an Albert Einstein quote that I’ve heard so many times it’s almost cliché, “if I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Perhaps over used, but I love this quote. 

Recently, I stumbled across the HBR article “Are You Solving the Right Problems?” by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg. The article opens by claiming that while most companies excel at solving problems, they struggle with problem identification. In a survey of private and public executives across 17 countries, Wedell-Wedellsborg found that 85% of them agreed that their organizations were bad at problem diagnosis. 

As an EOS Implementer, it is my job to teach my clients a simple tool for identifying and solving problems. However in EOS, we call them Issues because to be effective, you not only have to be amazing at solving problems, you also have to be spectacular at overcoming obstacles, breaking down barriers, removing frustrations, leveraging ideas, and taking advantage of opportunities. For simplicity, we call all of these things Issues; and we call the tool the Issues Solving Track (also referred to as IDS).

An organization strong at solving Issues means all of your people can solve Issues as they arise - making them go away for ever - rather than letting them linger for weeks, months, and sometimes even years.

In addition to teaching the Issues Solving Track to my clients, I use this tool in my own company, KindHuman Bicycles. While we are really good at using the tool, one day I noticed that the quality of Issues we were bringing up in our leadership team meetings sucked. We weren't focused on the most important Issues. We were tackling low level operational issues almost exclusively… Issues that each leadership team member would be better to solve on their own or with their departmental teams. When I stopped to reflect on this, I realized I bore part of the responsibility for this situation. I wasn't raising the most important issues, the ones that, if solved, would dramatically move our company forward. 

While reflecting on this Issue, I noticed that the really important Issues were also the hardest to solve. You know the type, the Issues that have lingered for years, that no matter how hard you’ve tried in the past, your team just hasn’t yet solved them. I stopped brining these types of Issues up because I wasn’t confident we could solve them. This is a really big problem because as I’ve heard over and over again from my fellow EOS Implementers, “your ability to solve the right Issues is directly correlated with your ability to move your organization forward.” 

With this clarity I have committed to ensuring that I - and each of my clients - push ourselves to raise the most important Issues that when solved will help us achieve our biggest goals. 

Fortunately, Wedell-Wedellsborg's article offers a powerful framework called "reframing" that helps tackle your most challenging Issues. The first example is “the slow elevator problem” (commonly taught in business schools around the world). The original framing of the problem is “the elevator is slow.” The easy conclusion to come to is “make the elevator faster.” While the conclusion is easy, the solution is extremely expensive and likely not feasible. 

We can reframe “the elevator is slow” into “waiting is annoying”. This reframing allows us to come to the conclusion, “make the wait feel short.” Possible solutions include “put up mirrors, play music, install hand sanitizer”, all things that distract us and make the wait feel shorter and less annoying. (The next time you take an elevator, you’ll probably think of me when you notice the mirror, music, and hand sanitizer!)

Wedell-Wdelssborg goes on to provide several other examples in his article. He also makes the point that “reframing is not to find the ‘real’ problem but, rather, to see if there is a better one to solve.” 

The next time you’re in a meeting, I hope that you will push yourself and your team to bring up more challenging Issues that will help your organization grow. Then reframe the Issue until you define it in a way that your team can solve. You’ll know when you get there because you’ll feel it. You’ll get that wonderful feeling where you know you’re ready move onto a quick discussion, solve the root issue, and make it go away for ever.

Here’s one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite films that drives the point home on reframing. For my clients… this is why I keep asking you “what’s the Issue?” during IDS.

(Please excuse the profanity in this clip.)

About EOS

EOS is a simple, complete and proven system for running a truly great organization. As an EOS Implementer, I help my clients create organizational alignment, execute with accountability and discipline, and work together as a healthy team.