Become a PowerPoint Guru by Dave Tracy
Learn the methodologies, frameworks, and tricks used by Management Consultants to create executive presentations in the business world.
Currently viewing the tag: "Problem Solving"
Understanding others has a lot to do with collaboration, performance management, and building effective teams.
Developed by Taibi Kahler in the 1970s, Process Communication Model (PCM) is a prominent psychometric tool for individual and team development. The main utility of the PCM model is in understanding others’ personality types, discovering one’s own personality, and personifying others’ personality types to have better relationships.
PCM allows the executives to understand others’ needs, influence others, find practical solutions to problems, and manage conflict. The model has found its utilization in a number of Fortune 500 organizations. NASA has used PCM for the training and selection of its astronauts for over 20 years.
As per the PCM model, each individual embodies an assortment of behaviors, each with its own set of psychological requirements, strengths, weaknesses, communication style, and motivations. The Process Communication Model describes that each of us exemplify a combination of 6 personality types—each of personality type has its strengths and weaknesses—but one personality dominates the others in an individual. The 6 personality types are:
- Harmonizer
- Rebel
- Thinker
- Persister
- Imaginer
- Promoter
Let’s discuss these personality types in a bit detail.
Harmonizer
Individuals with a dominating Harmonizer personality type are humble, quiet, and naturally gifted at forming relationships with others. The Harmonizers care for their family and friends, are compassionate, and use their feelings to judge the world around them. They treat others cordially, make them feel comfortable, listen to them attentively, and do not shy away from making physical contact.
Recognition of their personality and others’ amiable communication style motivate the Harmonizers. Under difficult circumstances, these individuals tend to become apprehensive, lack firmness, act irrationally, and make grave mistakes / incoherent decisions.
Rebel
The individuals possessing a Rebel personality are generally creative, fun loving, and radiate positive energy for others. These individuals respond promptly, reciprocate righteousness with virtue, and enjoy the present. The Rebels are valued for their extemporaneous humor, interest in others, energy, and problem-solving ability. They are a bit impulsive and judge the world around them through their likes and dislikes.
Others upbeat communication style and stimulation through playful contact motivate the Rebels. Under stress, the Rebels tend to get confused, whine, irritate others, leave complex situations, and bounce responsibility to others.
Thinker
Individuals with a dominating Thinker personality believe in data, logic, and perfectionism. They take on a methodical approach to doing things, ask too many queries, and only attend meetings when there is a formal agenda set in advance. The Thinker personality likes to evaluate detailed information before drawing any conclusions. These people are valued for their planning and organization ability, dependability, structuring ideas logically, and clear expression.
Recognition of their thoughts and accomplishments motivates the Thinkers. Under stress, they reverse delegate tasks and start doing those themselves, try to gather as much detail as possible to understand the situation, and may start arguments or even attack others. These people need time and assurance of their abilities to return to their organized selves.
Interested in learning more about PCM and its other personality profiles? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on Process Communication Model: Personality Types here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
Problem Solving is a fundamental life skill indispensable for survival of an individual. It is honed in every person to varying degrees. It is especially a useful skill to embody Leadership Development.
Problem Solving skill can be taught and learnt.
MIT defines Problem Solving as:
The process of identifying a problem, developing possible solution paths, and taking the appropriate course of action.
Problem Solving is a process that can be approached using various strategies but each Strategy usually follows the same theme, consisting of:
- Identifying the Root Cause of the Problem.
- Logically Analyzing all the Details of the Problem.
- Formulating a Solution.
- Effectively Communicating and taking Action.
Problem Solving Strategies consist of steps that help identify the Problem and choose the best solution. There are 2 basic types of Strategies:
- Algorithmic Strategies – customary step-by-step instructions to solving Problems. For example, in algebra: multiply and divide before adding or subtracting.
- Heuristic Strategies – general guides used to identify possible solutions. An example would be IDEAL—Identify Problem, Define Context, Explore Strategies, Act on solution, and Learn.
A certain Mindset is required to be developed for becoming a great Problem Solver. There are 6 traits experts have identified that shape the Mindset of a great Problem Solver. A great Problem Solver will always:
- Be Constantly Curious.
- Be an Imperfectionist.
- Adopt a Dragonfly-eye View.
- Pursue Occurrent Behavior.
- Leverage Collective Intelligence.
- Practice Show and Tell.
Problem Solving Mindset is valuable for any person especially professionals, particularly an entrepreneur, manager, or someone in the leadership role in an organization. A team of skillful problem solvers can become a notable source of Competitive Advantage for an organization.
Let us delve a little deeper into some of the Mindsets that make great Problem Solvers.
Be Constantly Curious
Innate human partialities frequently blind us to a range of solutions too early in the Problem Solving Process. Superior and increasingly creative solutions arise from being Curious about the wide-ranging possible answers. Very young children embody this trait. They are resolute in figuring things out hence their never-ending and high-energy inquisitiveness.
Improved results are generated by accepting uncertainty, constantly asking questions like why is this solution better, or why not the other one?
Be an Imperfectionist
Absolute knowledge is virtually non-existent, especially for Complex Business and Societal Problems. Accepting that our knowledge is Imperfect can bring about more effective Problem Solving. Constant revision based on new evidence is key to good Problem Solving. This is possible when we begin by confronting solutions that imply certainty. And, this brings out tacit assumptions about probabilities and makes it easier to assess alternatives.
Most Problem Solving involves a great deal of trial and error. We form hypotheses, dive into data for validation, and either refine our premise or discard it.
Adopt a Dragonfly-eye view
The purpose is to gaze beyond the usual arrangement into which our pattern-recognizing brains want to gather perceptions. This facilitates identification of obscured opportunities and threats.
A good example of this is the approach experts took to tackle a major public health threat. They framed the Problem in larger social context—taking the Dragonfly-eye view—garnering wider support and success. Confronted with a complex social map and a ballooning infection rate, the Problem was tackled by widening its definition. The frame was shifted from a traditional epidemiological transmission model at known hotspots to one where, another affliction of a particular sub-set of the impacted population was targeted because it was more relatable. The major public health threat was made into a sub-set of the larger issue. The solution was implemented in 600 communities and was eventually ascribed with preventing more than 600,000 infections.
Interested in learning more about Problem Solving Mindsets? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Problem Solving Mindsets here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
Organizations need to persistently improve the way they do business to stay ahead of the curve. New ideas trigger organizational improvement and build the foundation of a Learning Organization.
Scholars have defined a Learning Organization in many different ways. Some suggest it as an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. Marlene Fiol and Marjorie A. Lyles describe organizational learning as “the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding.” Barbara Levitt and James G. March define organizations as “Learning Organizations when they encode inferences from history into routines that guide behavior. Chris Argyris categorizes organizational learning as “a process of detecting and correcting error.” According to Peter Senge, “a Learning Organization is a group of people working together collectively to enhance their capacities to create results they care about.”
Being a Learning Organization offers several advantages. A perpetual influx of insights and new experience keeps the organization dynamic and ready for transformation; assists in better management of investments, improves efficiency; and helps in developing cost leadership and differentiation strategies. Learning Organizations tend to be more innovative by encouraging people to learn, develop, and by generating a more innovative environment. Shared learning builds the corporate image of the organization and increases the pace of change within the organization. Learning Organizations provide their people the ability to think insightfully about complex problems, take coordinated action, improve decision making, and instill a sense of community in them.
Despite efforts to improve continuously and creating new knowledge, organizations cannot simply become Learning Organizations. They employ various approaches but what they actually need is to become proficient in translating new knowledge into new ways of doing things, and actively managing the learning process so that it gets ingrained into the organizational culture.
Becoming a Learning Organization necessitates mastering 5 key activities. These 5 activities form the building blocks of a Learning Organization and should be integrated into the organizational core to transform your company into a Learning Organization.
- Systematic Problem Solving
- Experimentation
- Learning from Experience
- Learning from Others
- Knowledge Transfer
Applying these practices to some degree or in isolated cases isn’t enough. To ensure continued success, these practices should be complemented by distinct mindsets, support systems, and processes.
Let’s now discuss the first 3 building blocks in detail.
1. Systematic Problem Solving
Systematic problem solving is based on scientific methods for diagnosing problems, e.g., the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle or “hypothesis-generating, hypothesis-testing.” The technique employs fact-based management, relying on concrete data instead of assumptions for making decisions and utilizes statistical tools—such as Pareto charts, histograms, correlation, and cause and effect diagrams—to consolidate data and draw conclusions.
For a real Learning Organization, people need to become more disciplined, pay more attention to detail, assess underlying causes, and analyze data before reaching decisions.
2. Experimentation
Experimentation involves systematic exploration and testing of new knowledge. Experimentation has 2 fundamental configurations; both forms transfer knowledge and yield new insights, capabilities, tools, techniques, and processes:
- Ongoing programs
- Demonstration Projects
Ongoing Programs
Ongoing programs entails a chain of small experiments aimed at yielding incremental gains in knowledge. These programs maintain a steady flow of new ideas by sending workforce on sabbaticals at different places to learn new work practices and tools from industry and academia, and applying that knowledge to their daily routines. Such programs foster risk taking and a feeling of “benefits of experimentation far outweigh the costs.”
Demonstration Projects
Demonstration projects are one of a kind, large-scale initiatives that include holistic system-wide transformation targeted at a single site. These projects are executed with a goal of developing new organizational capabilities using a “clean slate” approach.
Self-managing, multi-departmental teams; high level of employee autonomy; considerable “learning by doing;” course corrections; implicit policy guidelines, precedents, and decision rules are the key characteristics of demonstration projects.
3. Learning from Experience
Learning Organizations gain valuable knowledge from their past experiences, by doing an exhaustive and systematic appraisal of past successes and failures. However, not too many managers pay attention to past experiences or reflect on those, eventually losing valuable insights. To inculcate a culture of learning, lessons learned should be recorded and made readily accessible to all employees.
A handful of companies have laid out processes for their managers to contemplate on their past actions and incorporate those in their learning. At the core of this approach lies the belief that distinguishes productive failure from unproductive success. Productive failure delivers knowledge and understanding whereas unproductive success goes unnoticed where nobody knows what went well and why. Learning from experience approach isn’t that expensive—case studies and project reviews can be compiled with little cost.
Interested in learning more about the building blocks of a Learning Organization? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Learning Organization: 5 Building Blocks here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Are you a Management Consultant?
You can download this and hundreds of other consulting frameworks and consulting training guides from the FlevyPro library.
