The new tagline of this blog is “steps for taking action on complex problems” which was always the end goal of the previous “thinking towards the whole”. The change in focus came partly from realizing I was sketching out the same ideas over and over again in my journal, but there was no real purpose to them.

This is the framework of steps and skills that I have been thinking about as a way to create better solutions to complex problems.

First, what is a complex problem?

It’s a mess. It’s a situation that if you push it with some action doesn’t respond immediately in a consistent way. It’s one where you know you have competing forces that will affect the adoption ofa soluton. It’s one where you have to come up with a new approach to reach your desired goal.

The first step in most problem solving techiques is to define the problem. But when what you have is a mess, this is not a simple step. How you frame the question will have a large effect on the outcome. And you might not even know your desired end state with clarity.

Step 1: See from multiple perspectives

You can’t learn everything you need to know by standing in one place, especially when you don’t know what you’re looking at. It is like the blind men in the parable who have gone to see the elephant. Each can only describe what he can touch, relating the part  to something familiar to him.

To understand a complex problem you need different perspectives, which usually means the stories of different individuals, each with their own biases and priorities.

Skills that are valuable in this step include:

• an open and responsive mind
• connecting and listening to others
• asking great questions

Step 2: Build a mental model

This is the central point. Somehow you have to put all the different pespectives into something that you can describe. It is only after you conceive of the idea that these pieces make up an elephant that you can decide what to do next. Sometimes this is a thing that must be done by an individual, other times it can be hashed out in a group.

Skills used in this step include:

• creative and design thinking
• systems thinking processes
• visualization techniques
• collaborative discussion

Step 3: Propose and execute actions

Just because you have an elephant doesn’t mean you will be able to do anything with it. You can hold the idea in your mind and nothing will change. The next step is to extrapolate and propose what should be done and to get other people to work to carry it out. Few messy and complex situations can be effectively changed by one person working alone, although one person is always needed to get things started.

Skills needed to carry out this step include:

• tactical and strategic planning
• ability to understand and influence others
• purposeful storytelling

Step Infinity: Review

As execution occurs, understanding changes. The situation itself changes. Individual responses need to be listened to. Potentially reimagining needs to take place.

A single model and plan can take us only so far. We can rest and see what happens as we carry out plans, but we always need to remember that things change and we will need to go through the process again to create the best possible solutions for the future.

My First Attempt

Nothing I have just said is a new idea. It has been all been spoken of before, although perhaps not in exactly this way. Combining it into this framework is what makes the most sense to me.

Within this framework and this blog I  intend to bring together stories, techniques, books, and work by others that make it ever more possible to carry out these steps and develop these foundational skills. My longer term goal is to eventually produce a version of this framework that helps others work through their own complex problems.

If there is an area of particular interest to you, please contact me, so I can focus first on what is of immediate use.

Authors of books and short stories get to choose whose eyes they and the readers see through when they write a story. These same tools can help us connect with each other.

First Person

The first person is the one we understand best. It is our own point of view and our own voice. In writing, it is when you see sentences about “I did this,” and “I did that.” As a reader, you can only see what that one character is saying and feeling and knowing.

When it comes to connecting to other people, one counterintuitive step is to first embrace our own point of view. If we know our own preferences and prejudices it helps us understand and control our emotional reactions.

Second Person

This one isn’t used much in fiction, but more often in instructional materials, when the author is speaking directly to the reader, focusing on their experience and bringing them into the writing. This article is in second person.

When considering this important perspective for connecting with others, it takes on a slightly different slant. You’re not just speaking to them, you’re putting yourself in their shoes. You look at the other’s background and assumptions and so forth and consider how they might be feeling and what conclusions they might come to.

This can be considerably different to what you yourself would do. Yet you’ll know if you’re doing it right when you come to the same conclusion that the other person did. When you realize you would have taken the same actions.

Third Person

This is the point of view we see most when we read. It is when a story is narrated from the point of view of someone not involved, often someone who knows everything about everything, including things that the individual characters involved would never know. In non-fiction it is often an impersonal voice.

When it comes to forming connections, this is taking the time to step back and view the point of difference as someone without any interest in the matter would. It can be extremely difficult, but it lets you see options and possibilities that you can’t from either your point of view or that of another involved person. This point of view gives you permission to think differently.

Putting It All Together

With practice, you can cycle through these points of view quickly and use them to improve your own reactions. With even more practice you can hold multiple points of view in your mind at once and develop new ideas from them. Whether a situation seems simple or complex at first glance there is something to learn from at least making the attempt to cycle through potential viewpoints.

The ideas of relating the points of view in writing to mental exercises we can use were drawn from The Art of Connecting by Claire Raines and Lara Ewing.

Keeping a welcoming mindset is a necessary step to connecting successfully, whether it is natural to you or was developed deliberately. However, it needs to be followed up by actions to successfully reach out to others. These are five types of actions recommended by Claire Raines and Lara Ewing in The Art of Connecting that serve as pathways to connection.

Clarify Your Intention

This doesn’t mean putting it into words to another, but you should try to do so to yourself. Then you can deliberately focus on it before you begin, and during if necessary. If you keep your good intent in mind, you’ll be less prone to distraction and more able to curb any negative reactions.

Notice Your Own Reactions

These negative reactions are emotions such as fear or disgust or self-righteousness that may pop up, particularly when something is happening (or you imagine it may be happening) around a point of difference. If you realize that an emotion or expectation is based on an internal stereotype, then you can work around it.

Search for Similarities

Somewhere there is a similarity between you and the other person. It might be geography or a hobby or having been the youngest child or having kids or not having kids yet or wanting to learn about something the other is passionate about or any number of other things.

It may take a number of conversational attempts, or offers, on your part to find it. Or you may need to pick up and answer a conversation that’s not your first choice because it is where the common ground lies. But, unless you’re very lucky, you have to believe the bridge will be there in order to find it.

Use Cues

Pay attention to body language and expressed preferences. Study these topics separately, if necessary. They can let you know if your search for similarities is going in the wrong direction or if your expression of your differences is working against your intent to connect.

Experiment and Adjust

Keep trying different things when you notice one approach is not working and keep improving on those that do work. This is common advice, but one that can require deliberate persistance. If you stop trying then you only guarantee that you will not achieve the connection you are trying for.

Even when you begin with the Titanium Rule of “Do unto others according to their druthers.” it’s not so easy to figure out how to put that into action. Claire Raines and Lara Ewing of The Art of Connecting suggest five core principles to guide your mindset for successfully connecting to other people.

There’s Always a Bridge

When we encounter someone our brains often search for the difference and focus on that. It’s hardwired into our brains as part of detecting threats for survival. But when you want to connect with someone, you need to have the belief and expectation that you have something in common with them.

Curiosity is Key

Allowing yourself to be curious and ask questions and be interested in others drives the ability to find bridges. It is also a way of giving yourself permission to be flexible.

What You Assume is What You Get

When interacting with others you often see what you expect to see. There are studies showing that this effect is measurable in various contexts. One of the more known is when teachers were told their students were gifted (instead of specifically chosen to be average) and the test results at the end of the year backed up the expectation.

Each Individual is a Culture

Demographics are only the beginning. You can try to become sensitive to liklihoods but you cannot rely on them. You don’t know for sure about where someone has grown up or if they spent an influential summer in an unusual place or happened to discover a new hobby through an accidental internet click.

No Strings Attached

When we go to the effort to be open, we want the other person to do so as well. We want them to recognize how we’re doing a good job and reciprocate. But the best mindset for connection is to deliberately set aside this desire.

Mindset Mechanics

Mindset can be a hard thing to change because it’s internal and you can only really affect your actions. Some things you can do to stay in a helpful mindset are to review core principles right before entering into a meeting with a new person and the looking back over how things went afterwards. What might have been different if you had been able to hold onto your open mind? You can also use many other techniques developed by the personal development experts.

The authors of The Art of Connecting, Claire Raines and Lara Ewing, began with individuals, master connectors, who were extraordinarily effective at relating to, interacting with, and gaining the trust of people different than themselves. And they looked for commonalities between them.

Unfortunately, the wisdom of experience is a factor, but this collection of concepts backed up story layered upon story helps provide shortcuts.

Becoming a Master Connector

All we can truly influence is ourselves and our own reactions. The beginning of connection is in the mindset each of us holds as we approach another person. The five core principles that Raines and Ewing illustrate include believing it is possible to form a connection, being genuinely interested in the other, assuming their good will, looking beyond stereotypes, and avoiding the expectation that they will do the same for you.

Certain skills make it easier to build connections on the foundation. Five of these, all focused on what you do mentally and emotionally while attempting to connect, are illustrated in detail within the book. A sixth merits its own chapter – the ability to shift your perspective to increase understanding.

None of the concepts discussed are true surprises, especially when reading in isolation instead of trying to put them in to practice in a real life situation. What the book is working towards is to get you to recognize and think about them so you “sharpen the saw” in preparation.

Connecting within Groups

Often we are as much concerned with getting others to connect to each other as we are with our own ability, especially when we are trying to bring diverse perspectives together. The Art of Connecting addresses this lightly at first and then at the end presents a set of exercises you can use as a leader to practically convey the lessons you have already learned.

Well Organized Information

Although it deals with a soft, emotional topic the book puts that fuzziness in a logical format. The overall topic is addressed by introducing concepts, then tools, then further illustrated with smaller and larger case studies. Each chapter is separated into helpful sub-headings and contains an “at a glance” summary at the end. 

Recommended

The Art of Connecting is interesting to read and contains information worth acting on phrased in a way that makes it possible to do so. I recommend it for anyone interested in working better with people different from themselves.

And in this sense everyone is different, but, as the book teaches, there’s always a bridge. Learn to build it with your words and actions. 

Most of us will use the same tools we’ve always used and think the same way we’ve always thought unless we are deliberately trying to step out of the rut. This is because these methods we already know use the least computing power or brain power, even though they are often less accurate.

This may be true of emotional intelligence and other varied intelligences as well, but today’s focus is on cognitive intelligence and whether being considered intelligent really means you are capable of acting logically and rationally.

The tendency is prevalent enough that it is studied in regards to improving IQ tests and defining what intellgence actually means. Here are a few sample questions you can ask yourself.

Do you lack specific tools to act rationally?

For example, certain questions require specialized knowledge, such as calculating probabilities and comparing a small chance in a large population to a large chance in a small population. If you’ve never been taught this bit of math, then you’re lacking a tool.

For example, if you are told that Harry is an introvert and then asked if it’s more likely that he’s a librarian or a salesman, then most people will pick librarian because the characteristic goes with the stereotype for the occupation. However, any particular person is a 100 times more likely to be salesman, simply because there are so many more of them. 

Are you influenced by the my-side bias?

Most of us have a subconscious preference for those people, stories, or solutions that we identify with in some form or fashion. When tests are run regarding split-second decisions the groups that the individual considers to be on their side are favored. These “my side” decisions can be obvious or subtle, but they do exist.

Do you only focus on confirming and not falsifying?

Most of us will only try to confirm an idea. We won’t go out and create the test that would prove something is false instead. This tendency can trip us up with puzzles and in real life situations, even when using standard analytical techniques like the scientific method.

For more try this:

If the above ideas interest you, then you can buy a digital issue of Scientific American Mind and read the full article that inspired this post or go the even more in-depth route and read Keith Stanovich’s book on What Intelligence Tests Miss: the Psychology of Rational Thought. 

History is often told in terms of stories across time. This person did this and it caused this. This invention was created and it caused these results. In an of itself, the study of history can be considered a study of systems and interactions.

Even more so when it is considered as a series of ideas that arose and influenced each other.

This was the framework set up by British historian Felipe Fernandez Armesto in his book Ideas that Changed the World. (You might also like this interview with Armesto at The Mind’s Construction Quarterly.)

What fascinated me was that many of the ideas most relevant to this blog came from either the last century or the ancient past. 

Recent ideas:

• religious and cultural pluralism along with cultural relativism
• uncertainty (or the implicated observer of Schroedinger’s Cat)
• chaotic unpredicability

Ancient ideas:

• our senses can be deluded and a full grasp of reality is unknowable
• there is order to the universe and we can influence it indirectly 
• yet the universe itself is dynamic and changing

In between there were many ideas that reflected the strength of one particular perspective, such as nationalism, a range of religious concepts, the superiority of a particular group of people, civil disobedience, and more. 

We are all affected by broad, sweeping ideas like the ones in the book, but in our day to day lives we can also become aware of smaller ideas that have become part of the system we’re trying to influence. 

It is typical to look at what has been done before when trying to solve a problem, but it might also be worthwhile to look for the history of ideas behind what was actually done.

Do those ideas currently hold sway? Are they related to other ideas? Can ideas that are currently prominent in other parts of the overall culture be tied into the problem under review?

Innovation is rarely a single linear path. The first idea, carried through to execution, is still imperfect. You repeat yourself, going through the process of right and left brain thinking again and again.

Every time you return to one of these steps, you do so with more insight and a greater sense of creative intuition. – David Murray

I found this idea strangely comforting, as it means I don’t have to be right. I don’t even have to have a better solution this time around, because it is information gained, either way.

Even better, it means that it is okay if something feels like a cheap imitation or insufficient, because innovation is actually an evolutionary process, as Murray calls it. Each adjustment and cycle could be extremely significant or a minor variation.

Some interesting questions that he proposes for the stage when you think you may be done are:

• Can this idea be used to solve a different problem?
• What components can I replace in this structure to make it more effective
• What components can I add or subtract or extract from or rearrange within my idea that will solve these additional problems?

Then you take the insight you gain from these mental gymnastics and go back to the beginning so you can pass through the steps of defining, connecting, and incubating and evaluating again.

He doesn’t really provide a way to figure out when you’re done, or, more accurately, ready to commercialize. He doesn’t offer hope for being ready for the budget meeting with something that boosts sales forecasts, but for developing long-term answers, with the development process sometimes delivering short term rewards. 

If you’re committed to innovation and creativity, then you’re committed to the time it takes. You’ve got to keep trying. To keep climbing. To keep thinking. – David Murray

This is the sixth and final, after a fashion, step in the process of innovation that David Kord Murray writes about in Borrowing Brilliance. The chapter itself contains a good collection of examples of potential mental shifts, some of which might resonate with you.

You can find my posts on the other five steps at:

1. Build a Foundation for Innovation with Problem Definitions
2. Use Existing Ideas to Construct New Ideas
3. Innovate Through Metaphorical Connections
4. Give Your Subconscious a Turn
5. Compare the Solution to the Problem
6. Iterate, Recycle, and Evolve Your Way to Innovation