What If The Problem Isn’t The Problem? Featuring Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:00:00

I would like to contribute to a world where people are better at solving the right problems, where they don't have to spend so much time and energy chasing the wrong thing. What type of problems do I see? They're pretty predictable. The problems are pretty consistent across the board and across time.

Kate Volman [: 00:00:20

In this episode, we are talking about how to solve the right problem. Now, I know we've done another episode like this, but what's cool about this episode is I invited the author of the book What's Your Problem? Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg. He wrote this book after writing the article in the Harvard Business Review, which is the article that I referenced in a previous episode. After I read that article, I reached out to Thomas and I said, oh, my gosh, we have to have you come on Lead with Culture, because the article was so great. And then I didn't even know that this book existed. What's your problem? I love that title. So good. So Thomas came on to share with us the framework that he talked talks about in his book that has helped many organizations take a problem, reframe it, and then move forward to get the results that they're looking for.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:13

So this is a really great conversation. We go through the whole framework. He shares really beautiful examples to help you to take your next problem or challenge whatever it is that you're going through. This is a great episode to take out a piece of paper and a pen and just jot down lots of notes so that you have this framework the next time you're dealing with a problem. Thomas, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:01:39

Well, thank you for having me here.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:42

I am so excited about this conversation because you really. I was inspired so much by your article that I read that inspired another episode that we did all about, are you solving the right problem? And then I reached out to you. I'm like, okay, we have to have you come on the show and talk about this because it is such a fascinating question. And then I kind of saw more of the work that you do, and you've worked with really incredible organizations and businesses. So this is going to be a fun discussion and very valuable to leaders out there today. So I want to start with, because you've worked with lots of different leaders, lots of different organizations, what are you seeing today as some of the biggest challenges that these leaders and organizations are dealing with?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:02:35

Well, in some sense, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of this skill because it's a little bit paradoxical. We have known about the importance of reframing, of solving the Right. Problems since at least the 60s where you see the first research on it cropping up. And yet the vast majority of leaders at all levels that I interact with are basically not very good at it. Some of them might be capable of doing it intuitively somehow, but it's hit and miss and they can't really teach it to their teams. They can't do it if they're not the room themselves and so on. And so it's been striking to me and a little bit worrisome in a sense that I in part can make a living teaching this to companies. That should not be the case.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:03:19

This is a central skill and I would like to contribute to a world where people are better at solving the right problems, where they don't have to spend so much time and energy chasing the wrong things. So that's kind of, I think, the first observation I have expanding a little bit on that. And maybe what you are thinking about, what type of problems do I see? Well, they're pretty predictable. I mean, the types of problems that people consistently run into has to do typically with collaboration or it has to do with figuring out some kind of something is happening in the market and we're not sure how to respond to it and similar. So in some sense the problems are pretty consistent across the board and across time. It's interesting to me that when you look at many of the skills that I think, for instance, we're focused on in coaching, they're eternal skills. They are things that were necessary 50 years ago and they will probably still be necessary in 50 years. Are there new problems cropping up? Sure.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:04:22

Uncertainty is happening in the current situation in the U.S. for instance, or AI is to introducing new convolutions to the workplace and so on. But pretty consistently we have the same type of problems all over the place. And I see that in almost no matter what industry or company I go into, they kind of look pretty similar. I'd be curious if you have seen what you've seen in your work there as well, with your interfacing with different clients.

Kate Volman [: 00:04:52

There's a section in your book that talks about getting leaders in a room together. And everyone that was talking about everyone had a problem in their mind and they were thinking or they were saying, you can't help me. I have a very unique problem. No one else has faced this problem. And then within an hour or however long they are recognizing, oh, wait, no, we have very similar problems. And so I always find that to be very interesting with, with leaders and organizations and humans. Right. If you're whatever challenge you're dealing with in your life, someone else has gone through it.

Kate Volman [: 00:05:26

But we love to think that we're very unique and special and so different than everyone.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:05:31

Yeah, it's funny you say that, because it is. I thought about what's going on there and of course, a problem is always unique in its particulars. We're not all, you know, dealing with the same boss or married to the same person or whatever. But when you go up a little bit in terms of abstraction, you immediately start to see patterns. Oh, this is about somebody in a headquarters function needing somebody further down in the organization to change their behavior. Or this is about two kind of people who's not communicating effectively because they're focused on, I don't know, the conflict instead of mapping their shared goals or individual goals or whatever. So you don't have to go too far up before you start recognizing the patterns. And that's really helpful, of course, because then you can start to draw on your experiences from.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:06:21

From other areas.

Kate Volman [: 00:06:23

Why do you think this skill is so lacking? Is it a problem? Almost like. Almost like we don't see figuring out the wrong problem as the right problem to solve. Is it leaders? Like, as you were talking, I was thinking that leaders. From what you were saying, it almost feels like leaders are just so focused on moving forward, not slowing down, not giving themselves the space to even think about it. And then they become so reactive instead of proactive. Like, where does this challenge stem from?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:06:56

I'd say two different levels there. One thing is that this is about practice. Like, this is a skill. It's not just a piece of knowledge. And you need to deliberately practice doing this. I think that the people who do that actually get pretty rapidly better at applying it. So that's the first thing, I think when you think about how we typically in the management space talk about this, we all quote at each other. The Einstein thing, he never actually said.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:07:27

But that thing about if you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem, whatnot. But most of the time, people don't go beyond that. So there's just this piece of, like, it's like telling people, think outside the box, that's great, but how do you actually do that? That's one level. So the pure practice of kind of like, here's a simple practical way of getting better at this rapidly, that you can kind of build your own skill in the other component links exactly to what you said. I think about the speed because I think there is this misconception that getting good at solving the right problems means that you have to like whenever you have a problem, you have to go two weeks to the mountains, think deep thoughts, come back with the revelatory answer. Nobody has time to do that. And I think a key part of the practice is to practice it in increments of five minutes so you become capable of using this on the fly instead of seeing it as something where we have to call a separate off site or have some kind of process for doing it. The second you introduce a heavy process, you really only use it on like the once a year big strategic problem.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:08:41

Whereas the most powerful use case for this is to apply it to almost everything you do by being capable of doing this in the span of a few minutes.

Kate Volman [: 00:08:51

I like that. Yes. I like this idea of a daily practice. It's almost like, I mean look, we've got lots of problems, challenges, whatever you want to call them. And actually you don't even you, you like calling them problems. You think it's important to call them a problem, to not water down.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:09:10

I understand the different philosophies. There are people who are more excited with calling them, let's call them opportunities or, or whatnot or challenges or whatever. The reason I like calling it a problem links to a bigger issue I see in organizations where we try to kind of language polish things too much. It's kind of yes, any problem has the hidden within an opportunity for development. But when we go in with something that's an obvious problem for the people involved and start to say oh this is a great learning opportunity, we are kind of inviting people to play this BS game about oh yes, that's what we're doing here. And I dislike that. I think a lot of the dysfunctions in our companies in part come from the lack of. It almost links to Amy Edmondson's concept of psychological safety.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:10:02

I think a core part of that is the ability to speak plainly about what's going on. Listen, we don't communicate well with the folks over in marketing. It's pretty annoying. It creates a lot of, you know, disturbance and friction on our end and it would be great if we could do something about it. Speaking plainly has merits. What's been your take there? Do you see more merit in kind of like the opportunity angle and kind of the languaging?

Kate Volman [: 00:10:27

Well, it's interesting because when I read that I thought it was such a great take because you're right, we do water down our language to especially in corporate, it can be easy to do that. But I do find like this reminds me of like coaching, right? Like coaching. Having coaching conversations. In Matthew Kelly's book The Culture Solution, Principle 6 is to create a coaching culture. And to me that is, that means we have the courage enough to have uncomfortable conversations. And what you just shared could be uncomfortable for some people in the room because they take it personally. They might not have an answer to the problem. So you're shining a light on that.

Kate Volman [: 00:11:13

But the more that we have those conversations, the less uncomfortable we get because this is just the language that we use. And so then it comes, becomes more around, okay, this is a problem, we need to solve it. And now I have the system to solve it. So I just feel like it almost gives us, it pushes us to really uncover the truth, get after it and be able to move forward.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:11:38

I saw that in action at one of the companies I did research on with Cisco and there's this instance of, there's an employee in there who is called Osés Ramírez Assad. This is, I've written this up in a, in a case study called Startup Cisco. And he basically said, hey, we noticed one of the reasons why we're not innovating more rapidly, why it takes us so long sometimes to get stuff to market, is that we have a habit of like, we have a meeting and then we talk about how that meeting went after the meeting. And what he did was to introduce a new way of working in his area, which was to say, whenever something's not working, we will bring it up immediately and we will change course. Like, so while we have, in the meeting, we're going to say, hey, this doesn't feel like we're in the right direction. Let's reject this and kind of, let's, let's try doing something on the fly. He saw amazing results from that, from a willingness to go a little bit against the culture that was there of being very kind of polite and then sorting things out on the back channel versus simply putting the thing on the table and. Exactly.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:12:46

I think, as you say, once you start doing that and people discover that the world doesn't end because somebody was confronted in a meeting, then you're starting to realize, oh, we can actually work like this. This is a viable option. That in many cases, the less politicking you have, the, the better.

Kate Volman [: 00:13:04

Yeah. And I think this is why having a third party person come into an organization that gives people the space to say the thing they want to say, but they're scared to say it.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:13:18

Yes.

Kate Volman [: 00:13:19

And we've seen that all. I mean, I have been in Some rooms that it has gotten uncomfortable because they felt comfortable, because, okay, we have this third party person, she's facilitating it. I can finally say to my boss what I want to say, but I need to have someone that can help facilitate it if it goes away, that I didn't intend it to go. So. But that's what they need. And every single time after that, people feel better. You get over it. Like, you have to get through the messy middle.

Kate Volman [: 00:13:48

You have to get through that uncomfortableness. But what you have done, which is really cool, is so as you, you developed this framework that you have used in organizations. It works and it's simple. Simple. Not easy, but simple. And so when I originally reached out to you, I said, I, I loved your article. It was so thought provoking. And we did an episode on this and I'd love to have you on.

Kate Volman [: 00:14:11

And you said, well, I wrote a book about it too. I said, oh, that's awesome. You said, it was such, it was such a great topic. I wrote a book about it called what's yous Problem? Such a great title.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:14:23

Thank you.

Kate Volman [: 00:14:24

Let's talk a little bit about how did you develop this framework? What was it like writing the book? And then I would love to get into the framework that you've developed.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:14:33

Yeah, I'm smiling when you mentioned the title, because that was actually a bit of a discussion I had with Harvard. It's published by Harvard Business Press. And since they are understandably kind of publishing in part for corporate audiences, they were a little bit concerned about the provocativeness of the title and that we ended up going with it because we realized that part of the challenge for book titles, like, you're almost better off erring on the side of being noticed, even if that means you might lose a few people who feel it's too provocative. The alternative is to sink into oblivion. And so that's a separate story. It really.

Kate Volman [: 00:15:11

And Thomas, it's your brand because you go after it. You're like, no, we got it. This is what it needs to be. This one needs to say. So people pick it up.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:15:21

I would say I hit somewhere in between there. I still think I bring a measure of politeness in, but as you mentioned, it's easier when you're an outsider. My sister in law, Mireda, who also writes for Harvard Business Press, she does organize like she's an organizational psychologist. She does coaching and she is called by her clients the Valkyrie, as in Norse mythology, because she goes in and absolutely goes to battle with them, which is. So sorry you asked about the it really came out of my first book, which was about innovation in practice. When you are, when you have a day job in a busy organization that in that one I already explored this issue as kind of part of one chapter around how do you solve the right problems? And consistently I could just see that this was something that resonated to an incredible degree with people, which surprised me because again, we've been talking about this since the 60s, so I'll admit I thought it was a solved problem to some extent. The more I work with companies and people, the more I realized it's not. And that led me to develop the methodology, working with a lot of clients and kind of applying it, and then ultimately basically Harvard Pub is my first book as well.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:16:37

So I kind of spoke to them about it and they, they fully agreed. Oh, there's a book on this, let's do it. And I've been fortunate enough that book has now, it's now out in 14 languages or something. So it's, it's had quite a international resonance as well. Yeah. How do we delve into. Maybe if we take. Shall we take it as if, like if, if the listeners are kind of thinking about a problem right now?

Kate Volman [: 00:16:58

Yes, that's what I want to do. I want to get. So I want to think so for the listener, whether it's going into a personal challenge or they want to consider bringing this into the boardroom with their team members, let's think about it and frame it in that regard because this goes back to your practice. I love that you said it's a practice because then we can think about this is Thomas is giving us the framework so that we can practice. So something that you're going through, it's like almost like every day you can pick a challenge that you can practice using this methodology.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:17:32

Yeah. So I'm going to talk about two aspects of it. One is just kind of like, what does this look like physically? And the other is some of the thinking strategies that I recommend people try to use. The physical part is just this is always more easy if you have other people involved in the discussion. We get too close to our problems in practice, we have a hard time seeing them with, with that, like a neutral distance. And it's just really useful to have somebody else involved. What can that look like? Anything from just putting two friends aside and kind of having a 10 minute conversation with them about it, or if you want to be more prepared, you can kind of write something down and share that with people as a basis for discussion or whatnot or you can go, if you're doing it with a full group, you can potentially even go and introduce the method a little bit, share the article I wrote, which you can link to it in the show notes, but something that a little bit primes them for the discussion. And like, why do you want to focus on the problem instead of solving it in this particular conversation? So that's the first thing.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:18:40

It's just make sure you try to do this with other people is just way more effective. And ideally, if you can, those other people maybe shouldn't, at least some of them shouldn't be too close to the problem. I've seen many instances where a team made progress because they pulled in somebody from outside that team. Doesn't have to be a different industry or whatnot. Somebody who's kind of understands your world but is at a little bit of a remove from it, that can help. So that's the practical thing. And again, this is not a time consuming process. It can be a short discussion around it.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:19:15

It's really just to quickly make sure you have seen all angles of it. A final variation I'll throw in is if you're doing this online on a teams or zoom call or similar, I mean you can use the chat, you can literally like describe a problem to people in the group, ask everybody to jump into the chat and just fire away for two minutes. And then you suddenly have a whole group of people's input in a very rapid process versus having them to speak up individually. That's kind of the physical what does this actually look like? And ideally at the end of that, of course, you figure out, okay, what's the next step I could take? Let me now jump into the specific strategies I advocate for because I think part of the how challenge of actually the practice of getting good at this is to understand what types of questions help the most in terms of finding new angles on a problem. It is about asking questions. But not all questions are equally good at this. So I mean, maybe it would make sense now if I can actually just kind of talk you through the strategies. There's five of them, one by one.

Kate Volman [: 00:20:24

Yes.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:20:25

The very first one is just to look outside the frame, meaning the initial understanding of the problem. What happens all the time is that people, they put a frame in front of them, so to speak, a specific understanding of the problem and then they delve into detail. They start asking five whys, they dissect every aspect of it. The danger there is that you get trapped in your first understanding of the problem and what's an example that, let's say there's a salesforce who's not pushing that new product. We want them to push. They're kind of sticking with their old product. And the person coming to you here discussing it is, you notice in the way they think about the problem, they think it's about incentives. They're kind of focused on, well, we need to get the carrots and sticks right here.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:21:11

We need to, you know, put more pressure on the sales fees, make it a bigger part of their bonus or whatnot. That might be true, but you could also consider whether there are aspects of this that did not. Does not revolve around incentives. Could this, for instance, also be a skill issue? Like there's literally some different skills required for selling this new product that we need to upscale people with. Could it be more worryingly something about the market that they're just realizing this particular customer segment, they're just not that interested in this new thing, and so our time is better spent pushing the old one? Okay, there's maybe something about the product or service we actually need to reconsider or whatever it is. The central thing there is noticing how you're framing the problem, almost labeling it, and then deliberately before you delve into the details of that, trying to see if there's a completely different way of thinking about it.

Kate Volman [: 00:22:07

So with that example, what would be that problem that they brought to the table? Like, how was it framed originally?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:22:16

In this case, it was literally, they saw it as an incentive problem, and they then realized, oh, this is actually also just a practical matter of training people in how to sell the new thing, because it was somewhat different. Another example I saw here, and this is one I mentioned in the article you read, is leadership group I did research on was trying to promote innovation within their organization. And so they were talking about rolling out a framework like a teaching thing that's, hey, here's this model we can use, and we're going to upskill everybody in these innovation methodologies. Luckily, the person managing the place had invited his personal assistant, Charlotte, into the conversation. And Charlotte interrupts. Everybody says, you know what? I worked here for 12 years. We have tried this process of rolling out an innovation framework three times before. It's never worked.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:23:12

I don't think you have a skill problem here. I think you have a motivation issue. And what turned out to work for them was to realize, oh, this is actually not about upskilling people's innovation abilities. They are already capable of being innovative. It is about working on making this a place to work where they want to do it. There was something off with the culture at the time that was kind of more transactional. And what the company ended up, the leadership team did very successfully, was actually to simply create a better place to work where people are fired up about, you know, going the extra mile because they felt that the company cared about them. And that actually led them to do a number of innovative things that probably would never have come about had they stuck with their own framing around.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:23:59

Oh, this is a skill issue and we need to roll out a framework. No, this is about what's going on in our culture, about how people relate to us as an organization. Is it just a place to work, or is it a place where you feel the leadership cares about you, and thus you might feel incentivized to give back in some sense and go the extra mile that innovation always requires? That was a slightly longer version of that.

Kate Volman [: 00:24:24

That's so interesting. And that goes to bringing the assistant in, to having those outside voices within the organization, but completely different. But she sees things very differently because she sees all the different departments.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:24:38

Yeah. And you can see the components there. Right. A, the leader's decision to broaden the circle. B, that there was a culture there, at least in that particular team, where Charlotte felt comfortable speaking up. C, that they were capable of listening. The leadership team were actually open enough to understand that. Well, there's an important perspective here that we're missing.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:24:59

And then, of course, that aspect of just going in and examining, hey, that's interesting. Might there be a different way of thinking about this? Okay, this is probably calling for a different approach than what we initially thought. So that's. Overall, that's kind of this notion of framing the problem and specifically looking outside the first frame, questioning whether you're looking at the right problem in the first place. One really important thing, and this is the second strategy, is to try to rethink and explore the goal of what you're doing. A lot of the research into real world management problems, and I'm thinking here of, in part Professor Paul Knott from Ohio State University, who did some great research here. Pretty consistently, one of the best things you can do instead of focusing only on the problem, is to clarify what people are trying to achieve. So you go in very, very pragmatically and ask in the conversation, like, what's your goal here when you're asking for this, for us to do this thing? What are you trying to achieve? What does success look like in this situation? That's one of the things that can Help you elevate your understanding and actually get to the recognition that there might be better approaches than the one you're focused on here.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:26:13

Quick anecdote that I love. This is from Robert Sternberg's work, who's one of the big names in creativity. He tells the story about a man and a leader in a company who loved his work, loved his company, but he hates his boss. Like, just their chemistry. So off. This is a horrible boss for him at least, and he can't stand it. He goes then to an executive search firm and says, you know what? Can you help me find a new job? And the consultant there says, absolutely. There's a huge demand at the moment for experienced leaders in your industry right now.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:26:48

This shouldn't take long. Interestingly, the man's wife is a bit of an expert on reframing, so that same evening he has a conversation with her about it. She puts a completely different spin on this. And the next day, the leader goes back to the executive search firm, tells the consultant, you know what? Can you help find a new job for my boss? Here's his cv. And according to Sternberg, that's what ends up happening. Like, the search firm literally manages to find a job for this person's horrible boss who moves elsewhere, and the leader eventually is promoted into that role, managing to stay with the company he loved. So I love that it's both a Huberx example, but I also love it because it highlights. We sometimes get stuck thinking about what success like in a specific way.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:27:41

In this case, the leader thought, like, success is to get away from my boss. Whereas another way of looking at the goal could be get the boss away from me.

Kate Volman [: 00:27:52

Oh, my gosh. So that's so interesting.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:27:58

It's a funny example, but I think it is really useful sometimes to talk about what does success look like here? What are we really trying to achieve? And once you have clarity on that, then you can start to question whether the initial approach is the right thing or whether there are other ways to achieve what you're trying to do. So core principle here, if in doubt, always try to figure out what is the goal. Can we question that goal?

Kate Volman [: 00:28:24

Yeah. This reminds me so much Matthew Kelly, who's the founder of Floyd, he will often say, never accept the premise of the question. So it's like, wait a second. Just kind of encouraging people to look at things a little bit differently. And then this also just reminds me of that great coaching question, which is, what's the real problem here for me?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:28:47

Yeah, that's Michael Bunger. Senior's work. I love him. He's. Is it the coaching habit?

Kate Volman [: 00:28:51

Yes.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:28:52

Yeah, yeah. I really like his work because it's simple. He has sold for making it actually applicable in the real world, which is not always the case amongst our academic colleagues. So I would say that that is just a really powerful thing to do. And you, like, never accept the premise of the question. I'd like that too. Linking that back to our earlier example about the Salesforce thing. If somebody comes to you and says, well, here's the issue.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:29:20

How do we get the right incentives for the salespeople to sell this thing? And exactly. Buried in that statement is a premise that it's about incentives and getting the mix of incentives right. So the second you as a coach or whatever role you're in, can go in and help them kind of step away from that already there, you're doing them a big favor. Even though you. You might not know what the other framing is yet.

Kate Volman [: 00:29:47

So cool. This is what I'm saying, where I feel like you have developed this framework that is simple but not easy. It just. They can. You can go down like the rabbit hole in each of these areas.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:29:57

Yeah, yeah. It's a. I mean, I have worked with framing for maybe 15 years now, and I love it because it's like an endlessly. For intellectually super fascinating thing. Even that early process of. We're stepping away from the framework now a bit, but problem finding. What I've noticed is when people, you know, when I teach this to companies, I have exercises where I just ask them to pick a problem that they're facing right now and try to reframe it. And in many cases, I see people pick an uninteresting problem.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:30:28

They kind of intuitively just seek something out that's not really. Even if they solved it, what would make that big of a difference to them? And so there's even an initial kind of sensing act of figuring out, wait, is this really the problem that's useful to discuss? Or is there something else going on here that is much more crucial? Like, super example. A simple example from my own life could be something like, if you're an author, it's easy to ask, what should my next book be about? And the bigger question is, is a book necessarily the thing I should do next? Or might there be something completely different versus just solving for the immediate thing? That's not like finding an interesting, juicy problem to sink your teeth into. I think that's relevant in so many contexts. Author is one of them. But I think that hits Everybody.

Kate Volman [: 00:31:18

Yeah. And I love that you just used that example because I had that exact.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:31:24

Why you're an author. Yeah, your book.

Kate Volman [: 00:31:26

Yes, I totally had that exact reframe and I ended up creating something totally different because I said, no, I don't actually think this is the next book, but it's something that is. So I love it. That's. And it also just takes so much pressure off because if you're so focused on it has to look a certain way, you're almost causing more problems that don't need to even be there.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:31:49

And I would say for those of our listeners here who are thinking about putting their expertise into writing somehow, I would say if you're thinking about writing a book, start with writing an article. It's a lot faster and people actually read it more than they read books. And it's a really great calling card and a testing ground to kind of see if this is something that really resonates with people before. Like, as you well know, Kate, but writing a book is typically like entering a three year marriage with a topic and not an easy marriage. So it's kind of. Hey, that, that's sor. Now getting down the rabbit hole of, of book writing. But I'm always.

Kate Volman [: 00:32:29

I know lots of people have a dream of writing a book, so. But, but yes, that will be another episode. All right, so let's get back into the framework. So we have to frame the problem, look outside the frame, rethink the goal.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:32:43

And examine bright spots. Bright spots is the observation that you often have a positive exception somewhere in your history with the problem. Like, so this is an issue you've dealt with for, I don't know, across the span of a few years. However, when you think about it, there's often moments in time where the problem either wasn't as bad or where it was actually completely solved. That can help you zoom in on a different understanding of the problem if you pay attention to those bright spots. Super simple example. This is a good friend of mine, Tanya Luna, also an author, her marriage with Brian working really well. They're together to this day.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:33:27

And they did have an issue, which was fights. They on occasion ended up in these really, really harsh kind of conflicts where, you know, and they both really didn't like that their first and fruitless exploration kind of went Freudian. It was like, well, we grew up in different cultures and here's what I was like as a child and here's my value set and blah, blah, blah. And none of that got them anywhere. It was like an endless Excavation. The thing that solved their problem was simply noticing bright spots. And in particular, Tanya suddenly realized, wait, normally we really get into fight, especially around finances and budgets. However, there was that one instance not too long ago when we had a discussion about the budget and it was completely frictionless.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:34:14

Like, we did not fight once. She kind of remembered that she realized what was different about it, which was it happened in the morning. Like, almost all of their fights happened after 10 o'clock in the evening. And part of the issue was not the conflict, but that both of them at that point were just out of energy. And so now Tanya and Brian, they have a rule in their marriage called the 10 o'clock rule, which is if anybody brings up, any of them, brings up anything contentious and it's after 10, you just say, Ah, 10 o'clock. And then you postpone it till the next morning where you have a discussion around it. According to Tanya, it was literally 80% of their conflicts just disappeared through that rule. So, basic example here, notice and try or try to look for the bright spots in your history with the problem and see if there's something you can learn from them that will allow you to be much more effective in solving them.

Kate Volman [: 00:35:10

I loved that example and it's so memorable. And look, Thomas, you might have just saved some marriages to the people that are listening.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:35:20

I mean, one of the things I realized when I was. I came at this from a business perspective, solving business problems. And I immediately noticed when I shared it with people, half of the stories they told me afterwards were kind of from their marriages or from their relationships to their kids and so on. So actually in the book I wrote about it, I eventually, I think a third of the examples are from the personal realm because people really, people really recognize those. We all have them. And of course, problem solving is kind of the same skill across domains. So if you get better at solving problems in your personal realm, you also build problem solving skills for use in your professional space.

Kate Volman [: 00:36:00

Absolutely, absolutely. This is why I think it's so important. And going back to your practicing, practicing this, this framework.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:36:09

So fourth, fourth step here is looking in the mirror. And that's really about asking the question, what is my role in creating this problem? What happens very often, of course, is that we see problems as something that other people are creating for us. It's those idiots over in marketing that's kind of causing this chaos. I don't know why I keep hitting on the pro marketing folks. That might be mostly true. It might mostly be that the people over here are creating tension or whatnot. But there's probably also something that you are doing or not doing that is contributing to the problem's continued existence. Like you are part of an ecosystem in which the problem lives.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:36:55

What is your contribution to it? The contribution term is a term I really like from the work of Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen in Difficult Conversations. That's a classic book on this, which is really the notion that we all contribute to a situation. Instead of looking at one specific person to blame, you're trying to understand all of the people in this ecosystem looking at how their actions or inactions are helping the problem continue.

Kate Volman [: 00:37:21

We gotta get real with ourselves. That's what it is. It can be challenging for us to recognize, oh, wait a second. Maybe I'm part of the problem.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:37:30

Yeah. So this is an example from another author, Heidi Grant, who talks about her editor. And the. The editor was kind of trying to promote a more open discussion in his meetings, and he was failing at it, and he was a bit frustrated around it about it. And then what he simply did was to start asking people what was going on and kind of trying to understand if he had. If he somehow played a role in this. And it turned out he did because one of them said, well, you often look quite angry in meetings. What do you mean? And then he realized he had a specific face he put on when he wanted to show people that he was really listening to them.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:38:09

Except that was often interpreted as an angry face. So people were like, oh, my God, I probably shouldn't say anything to make this so super simple thing. But, like, this is just somebody getting outside feedback helping him recognize that, you know, the signals he thinks he's putting out in the world is not actually what's going on. So that's. That's a very specific personal example. But I think it is quite humorous to. To kind of understand, oh, my God, people see my angry face when I try to do my listening face or whatever.

Kate Volman [: 00:38:44

Well, that kind of leads into the last step, right?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:38:48

And that is taking their perspective. It surprisingly, this is something we're bad at. And I say surprisingly because on a conceptual level, it's pretty simple. Whoever else is involved in the problem, try to step into their shoes and see either what problem they are trying to solve or how they see the situation on paper. That's pretty straightforward, Right? Okay, I can do that. Except people have a habit of not doing that so much. And one of the most memorable instances for me of this came when I was. I normally teach this method to leaders in companies.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:39:23

What happened to Me was I was invited to teach this to in upstate New York at what's called an elementary prep school consisting of five, six and seven year old kids. Now as part of this, I had the kids solve problems and then often I will ask adults, like, what type of problems do you think the kids had? Pretty consistently the adults like fire off stuff like, well, I have to go to bed, I don't give enough time with my iPad, there's a toy I want, I don't get the food I prefer whatever it is. Amazingly, none of those things cropped up with the kids. What the kids problems were really about was about other kids. It was about a sister or brother who was annoying, about a friend who was kind of giving them issues or a bully at school or something. So not about things, but about relationships and consistently not about relationships to the parents. All of the problems that people suggest automatically, things like, you know, bedtime and iPad and whatnot, those were not the kids problems. Those were the parents problems.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:40:30

They were literally injecting themselves and their preferences and their personal experiences into the question of what do you think your kid really cares about?

Kate Volman [: 00:40:40

Interesting. The kids are like, no, it's fine. I don't mind popping out 20 times asking for hugs and water and everything. That's great.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:40:48

I mean, this is good news for parents. They have accepted that we're evil dictators. They're okay with it. So it's, it's a. But I, it is just so striking to me that even with kids whom, you know, for those of the listeners who have kids, these are creatures you spend a lot of time with as opposed to for instance, your customers, which you might not spend as much time with. And even there we get the perspective taken wrong. So simple, simple, simple. But that notion we know from research, it can really help that just somebody says in the meeting, hey, how do you think the folks over in marketing see this? And maybe let's be really radical, maybe we should talk to them about it, understand what their goals are, how this thing looks like from their side of the fence and so on.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:41:39

So super simple thing. But we know it can really help.

Kate Volman [: 00:41:42

What'S so interesting, especially when it comes to sales, we are always trying to figure out what are the answers to everyone's questions, like how can we get a no to a yes? What else can we give to that person instead of really just what's the real problem? Like really opening it up and having very open dialogue. And what's cool is that when you let your guard down and you start to just Ask those kinds of questions, you usually have a really good conversation. People tend to be very honest. Like, they will say, hey, look, I'm really interested, however, and they give you the real answer instead of, oh, I'm still thinking about it, and no one wants to hear that. So this is why I think it is so important. Going back to what we originally talked about is to be able to say the hard thing and then opening it up. This. Opening up this conversation, which I think this is the framework in which to do that.

Kate Volman [: 00:42:36

But when you start with, hey, this is open, this is what it's for. We have the framework, this is the way that we're going to be solving problems from now on. It almost just becomes part of the culture.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:42:47

It's remarkable to me how big of an impact it can have. It doesn't always work. To be clear. There are some times where you go in, you have a problem, you try to reframe it, and you realize 10 minutes later, no, we're getting nowhere with this. We know what the problem is. It's just hard to solve. That can happen. Other times, though, what you see is that sometimes a five to ten minute conversation can help people solve problems they've struggled with for years, which is insane.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:43:14

It is frustrating to me. Again, a little insane that people aren't better at this thing. There is a simplicity to it. You can start building the skill pretty rapidly, and once you do, you get a little bit of a superpower in many situations. So maybe this could be just my obsession. Because, hey, when you're talking to a guy who worked with us for 15 years, of course he's obsessed with this thing. But I would say I think there is something to that. I think people who do coaching or involved in it, they really recognize how impactful this can be at times.

Kate Volman [: 00:43:48

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is why coaching exists, right? You're asking people great questions and you're giving them the tools to lead their team differently, to have better communication, to create a great culture, and to accomplish the mission of the organization. That's what we're here for. Then. I know the last thing you talked about is how do you keep momentum? You have the framework. How do you keep the momentum going with teams?

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:44:12

I. It's something I've observed with. It's almost a particular personality type. And I think those of us who are, you know, if you have people who had PhDs in your life, some of those folks like to go to a dark corner and think for three years. It's not everybody, but I Think it is just really useful to remember that this is an iterative process where you think about whether there's a different way of understanding the problem. But then, crucially, you go out and do something, you actually have that conversation with the marketing folks or whatnot, because the longer you spend in your own head around it, the slower things start to happen. And thus, fundamentally, this almost comes back to, like, the lean startup or philosophy with rapid prototyping or whatever you can get. But, like, once you've had a discussion about this, identify the one thing that you think was most interesting or promising from your conversation about the problem and try to see if there's something you can do to move forward.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:45:14

Be that a conversation, a small experiment trying to run a meeting differently. Whatever it is, just keep an eye out and notice. If you lose momentum with the problem, then typically it's about stop thinking and start doing something. That's the short version of it.

Kate Volman [: 00:45:33

All right, good. Well, and don't be hard on yourselves if you don't get it right right away. This is a practice. It takes some time, but continuing to go back to this framework is. Is helpful. So for those that are listening, if you want to really dig into it even more, then you definitely need to check out what's your problem. Such a good book. It lays everything out for you beautifully.

Kate Volman [: 00:45:59

There's lots of imagery in there, lots of data and graphs and chart.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:46:03

All.

Kate Volman [: 00:46:03

All the things you would expect from Harvard Business Review. It's a. It's a really great book and one that you can continue to go back to, so I encourage everyone to check out that book. Thomas, thank you so much for being on the show. This was so fun. Thank you for sharing your framework with us.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:46:18

Thank you. And good luck using it.

Kate Volman [: 00:46:20

Yeah, I'm excited. I. I've already. I already. I already told Thomas. I'm like, I've been using it in my personal life, and it is. It is definitely interesting to explore and really gives you the right tools to. To make better decisions and to, you know, figure out where to go next.

Kate Volman [: 00:46:36

Thank you so much, and I look forward to staying in touch.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg [: 00:46:40

Thank you.

Kate Volman [: 00:46:44

I hope you liked this episode as much as I enjoyed the conversation with Thomas. Now you have the framework for whatever challenge you're going through. Challenge, problem, whatever you want to call it. And now you can practice this. I love this idea of practicing this every day so that you get better at reframing, better at not accepting the premise of the question and thinking about whatever challenge you're going through a little bit differently. Come up with maybe completely ridiculous solutions that you never would have thought of had you not had this framework to put forward. So we're going to leave a link to Thomas's book in the show notes so you can check that out if you'd like. And of course we did talk a little bit about that third party person that comes into your organization and if you thought, wait, that would be very beneficial with my team right now.

Kate Volman [: 00:47:36

Of course we do one on one coaching as well. So if you are interested in any of that stuff, we would love to have that conversation with you. You can go to floydcoaching.com fill out that form and someone on our team will get in touch with you. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, Lead with Culture.