All problems can be solved by acquiring the requisite skills
A review of the “phenomenology of problem solving”
(1) The insufficiency of strategic planning in solving problems
“Traditional” approaches to solving problems typically involve developing and applying #strategies. Strategies (and “strategic planning”) are assumed, prior to thought, to be the missing component in solving problems.
For example, at the political level, such strategies are often called “policies”, and a political party seeking votes in a democratic country, will happily tell you what its policies are. For example, “our plan is to cut taxes”, or “our plan is to spend more on healthcare and education”.
Strategic planning, although it may be necessary, is not however a sufficient approach to solving problems because it fails to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
(2) What is actually missing, in order to solve a given problem, is a person or a team with the correlated necessary set of skills
Skillful action, while it may include the use of strategic planning, is what actually makes the difference between those who are able to solve a given problem and those who are not. Skillful action bridges the gap between theory and practice, between #know_that and #know_how. For example, skill bridges the gap between knowing the theory of balance, and actually being able to ride a bicycle.
This is because skill is an embodied (“in-the-world”) phenomenon.
However this insight initially merely raises more questions:
- How can people with the necessary skills be identified?
- How can I or my team acquire the necessary skills to address a given problem, if or when we don’t already have those skills?
Even so, the answer to these questions may appear paradoxical, or to be condemning ourselves to a regressive loop. The answer is of course, that we must develop the skills required to be able to identify those people, and we must develop the skills required to acquire new skills.
While this answer initially appears to leave us conceptually chasing our tail, what appears to be a vicious circle can in fact be a virtuous one. To see how this is possible, we need to understand more about the nature of skill.
(3) Skill is transparent
The two issues mentioned appear to be exacerbated by nature of skill, in particular that skill is transparent: the acquisition and exercise of skill is pre-cognitive. We typically do not know, with any degree of certainty, what makes us “good at something”. Nor do we know what makes us “bad at it”. Our bodies, or perhaps in the case of cognitive skills, our brains working with our senses, simply embody the skill in question. How did this happen?
It happened by exposing ourselves to learning opportunities.
In other words the vicious circle can be made to be virtuous, by including the world into it. When we include the world into the circle, we subject ourselves to occasions in which it is possible to acquire a new skill. For this to happen, it is not necessary to understand how it happened.
(4) Karate Kid
The Karate Kid comes to Mr. Miyagi and says “teach me how to do karate”, and Mr. Miyagi says, “I’ll teach you, but first you have paint my fence”. So the Karate Kid paints his fence and says, “now show me how to do karate”. Mr. Miyagi says “I’ll show you, but first I want you sand my floor”. So the Karate Kid sands his floor, and then says “now teach me how to do karate”. Mr. Miyagi says “I’ll teach you karate, but first I want you to polish my car… wax on, wax off”.
Eventually the Karate Kid is so annoyed at Mr. Miyagi getting him to do all these chores that he has a tantrum and is about to walk out. But Mr. Miyagi calls him back and gets him to demonstrate all the actions he has been practicing. Painting the fence, sanding the floor, wax on wax off, all turn out to be ways of blocking kicks and punches when you are doing karate. By practicing these moves over and over, even though he had no idea what the point of them was, the Karate Kid has become much better at karate than he had any idea that he was.
(5) Solving problems “in-the-world”
(1) Approach problem solving as “re-definition”. Avoid defining the problem for as long as possible.
(i) Iteratively re-define the problem, and take action in the world based on that re-definition.
Notes:
* Being able to re-define problems is itself a skill which can be acquired and practiced.
* Taking action in the world is what makes the circle virtuous rather than vicious.
(ii) Then review the results and outcomes and re-define the problem again and repeat.
(2) Problems are not getting solved because we don’t (our team doesn’t) have the right skills. (We don’t have the right know-how distinguished from the right know-that.)
(3) Skills are transparent.
(4) Skills may be broken down into sub-skills which can be practiced separately from each other before being combined in the delivery of the whole skill.
(5) Thinking is a skill, and hence is transparent.
(6) We need a phenomenology of problem solving rather than a theory of problem solving.
(6) A phenomenology of problem solving: ie. How to acquire new skills
Pick 2 significant and 2 insignificant problems or pick a current political crisis or an organisational crisis you are dealing with.
- How has the current statement of what the problem is been determined?
- How have (and how could) the previous attempts to solve the problem be interpreted?
- How does the answer to question 2 shape the current statement of what the problem is?
- What cheap experiments would enable a revised determination (and interpretation) of what the statement of the problem is?
- What skills are missing?
- What sub-skills can be identified as making up those skills?
- What cheap experiments would make the missing skills and sub-skills more obvious?
- What cheap experiments would enable the acquisition of the missing skills and sub-skills?
- What regular practices would enable the acquisition of the missing skills and sub-skills?
Follow up:
https://www.ukcoaching.org/resources/coach-learning-framework/understanding-skill-acquisition
