How many times have you faced the challenge and tried all these
things to fix it, yet it didn't work? The next thing,
you know, you've lost track of what the original problem was.
It's those funny moments in the middle of an argument when you need to ask,
what are we arguing about again?
When it comes to critical thinking,
you need to be able to solve the right problem, and that's
exactly what we're going to cover here.
Everything starts with this one important question.
What's the problem you're trying to solve?
This is especially important to identify when you have
multiple things going on at the same time.
Imagine you're in a leadership position at a company and
you're finding yourself overworked.
Your team is super dependent on you to answer a whole
array of questions all the time,
but you're stretched thin in terms of the revenue your company
is making. While the team performs well,
they're overworked.
Now you have people quitting on you, making you even more short‑staffed.
You then have to spend more time and more money searching for a
replacement, and they have to be trained as well.
And this keeps getting worse as you feel like you're in this endless cycle
where you're constantly scrambling to put out fires.
So how do you make the best decision when there's so much going on you barely
feel like you can keep your head above water? The first thing to simply be
aware of is that you're likely in a survival state trying to fight to solve
all the problems around you at once.
Once you calm your nerves,
whether it's by taking some time to yourself to take some deep breaths,
meditate, or anything else that helps you feel relaxed,
you can ask yourself the question, what is the problem I am trying to solve?
Now,
this may feel a little tricky because it can often feel like there's many
problems to solve. The way to answer this question is to keep in mind what
you are ultimately trying to achieve in the first place. For business
leaders, the ultimate goal might be to create a profitable company with
great culture and healthy signs of growth. With a specific goal in mind,
ask yourself what the common thread is between all the challenges you're
facing.
You might initially think that the problem is the people quitting on you,
that your company is not making enough money, or that your
employees can't work without depending on you.
So ask yourself, what's causing all of these problems in relation to
your goal? You might realize the commonality is that you don't have
the time to even figure these problems out.
Once you're able to see the problem clearly, write down the
goal and how your problem relates to it.
Use the format, "My goal is to ______, but the bottom line problem is
______." An example would be, "My goal is to create a profitable company
with great culture that's showing healthy signs of growth, but the
problem is I never have enough time to figure out how to even do it."
Take a look at the challenges ahead of you and the challenges you are
currently facing.
Identify the problem that you're solving for.
That's how you get clarity on where you need to
focus your critical thinking skills.