What's Your Problem?

Are you solving the right problems? If not, reframing can help.

Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? Most people have. In a survey, 85 percent of companies said they often struggle to frame the right problems. The consequences are severe: Firms fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Entrepreneurs build products that nobody wants. Organisations 'solve' problems with new rules that somehow make things worse, not better. The waste is staggering. As the management thinker Peter Drucker pointed out, there's nothing more dangerous than the right answer to the wrong question.

The good news is, there is a way to get better. The key is something called reframing the problem, a crucial, underutilised skill that you can master with the help of this book. Based on his years of teaching, author Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg offers a simple, three-step technique—Frame, Reframe, Move Forward—that anyone can use to solve the right problems. Reframing is not difficult to learn. It can be used on simple everyday challenges and on the biggest, trickiest problems you face in your business. In this visually engaging and friendly book, you'll learn from leaders at large companies, from entrepreneurs, consultants, non-profit leaders, and many other successful problem solvers.

It's time for everyone to stop barking up the wrong trees. Teach yourself and your team to reframe, and growth and success will follow.