SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How effective are your organization’s problem-solving methods and approaches?
- Very — we crack problems quickly, effectively and easily: 13.6%
- Somewhat — we eventually solve the problem after a little work on it: 50.38%
- Not very — we struggle with defining and solving problems: 27.46%
- Not at all — we’re terrible at problem solving and face analysis paralysis: 8.56%
Problems with problem solving. The speed of your problem solving drives the speed of your business. The faster you solve the right problems, the faster your business improves. Using a simple and standard problem-solving approach across your organization can speed things up. Do you have a standard approach to solving problems? If not, consider finding a problem-solving approach that works for you and your teams. You’ll spend less time trying to figure out the problem (or worse, solving the wrong problem) and more time implementing solutions that improve your business.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”