Challenge Your Thinking Paradigms Through the Art of Problem Solving (AOPS)

When adults used to tell you that life is everything coming at you all at once, they weren’t kidding. This is where the art of problem-solving, aka AOPS,

We face problems, decisions and dilemmas on the regular in both our personal and professional lives. Some problems are easy to solve, while others can have you feeling like you’re going around in an endless circle with no resolution in sight.

I regularly work with leaders and business owners who simply can’t get out of a solutions slump. Whether this is solving a recurring problem within their organisation, sourcing new product ideas or scaling their business, it’s not always easy to see the wood for the trees.

A thinking paradigm is basically the lens through which you see the world. It’s the mental blueprint you rely on to understand problems and make decisions.

These paradigms are shaped by everything from your education and career experience to the culture of your industry. Over time, these paradigms feel so obvious that you don’t even realise you’re operating within them.

While paradigms help us make quick decisions (no one wants to reinvent the wheel every morning), they can also become invisible barriers.

When you’re stuck in an old way of thinking, you might miss fresh opportunities, fail to spot emerging threats or automatically dismiss creative ideas because they “don’t fit the mould.”

Remember Blockbuster? They clung to the paradigm that people loved coming into stores to rent movies. Don’t get me wrong, this was a good era, and so many have fond childhood memories of visiting the video store! However, consumers’ needs, wants, and motivations changed, and whilst Blockbuster were stuck in a retail paradigm, Netflix reimagined movie-watching from the customer’s couch. The rest is history and a cautionary tale. (And not forgetting that Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to buy Netflix).

Here’s another simple example. Imagine someone trying to improve the speed of horse-drawn carriages when the rest of the world was starting to build cars. It’s not that they weren’t thinking well, it’s that they were stuck inside a paradigm that no longer made sense and were thinking well about the wrong thing

When markets, technologies and customer expectations shift (and they always do), leaders who can’t shift their thinking risk getting left behind.

Remember Blockbuster? In a LinkedIn post, Netflix’s Marc Randolph said that it was the retail background and bias of Blockbuster CEO John Antico that stopped him from seeing the digital possibilities of Netflix. If he hadn’t had 35 years in shops and retail and had some tech experience, he might have seen past his biases.

The good news? Challenging your thinking paradigms isn’t about throwing everything out, it’s about being willing to question, adapt and create new possibilities. And that’s where creative problem-solving really shines.

Creative problem-solving isn’t about pulling ideas out of thin air or hosting endless brainstorming sessions with colourful Post-it notes.

It’s about making a subtle, but powerful, shift in how you (and your team) think about challenges.

Instead of rushing to fix a problem with the first obvious solution, creative problem solvers and innovators step back, rethink the problem itself and often uncover surprising and far more effective answers.

Let’s unpack this fresh way of thinking a little more.

Before you solve anything, you have to ask: “Am I solving the right problem?”

Leaders often jump straight to solutions without questioning if they fully understand the issue. The idea is to challenge assumptions about what the problem really is.

Let’s say there’s a restaurant that’s struggling with slow table turnover. The obvious solution here would be to hire more waitstaff. However, reframing this problem could reveal that it’s actually the outdated menu design or the sheer number of meal options that’s making it difficult for people to decide what they want.

Therefore, the way you would solve that problem and the possible solutions would be completely different.

Absolutely, the restaurant may indeed need more waitstaff. However, it’s very easy to get excited about solving the wrong problem. Always be open to making sure you are curious enough to look at the problem from all angles. You dont want to be the salesman running around with a pre-made solution, looking for a problem to solve.

We all have hidden assumptions — ideas we believe to be “just the way things are.”

Creative problem-solving requires you to question those default beliefs.

Let’s take these two assumptions as examples:

“Customers won’t buy luxury items online.”

“Remote teams can’t collaborate as well as in-person teams.”

These assumptions may have been true once, but they don’t necessarily apply today.

When you challenge assumptions, you may just open the door to innovation that competitors still think is impossible.

When you take a more creative approach to problem-solving, wild ideas aren’t thrown out, they’re welcomed. Even if an idea seems unrealistic at first, it can spark new connections and better solutions, and it may mash up with another wild idea for the right path forward.

Did you know that the idea for the Post-it Note came from a failed attempt at making a super-strong adhesive? Sometimes, the solution you need comes from letting go of safe thinking. Other times, it can be a simple happy accident.

What’s important is that you have nothing to lose by thinking way outside our usual frameworks of what’s possible.

If you’re working in a team, exploring unlikely ideas also helps you create a culture of innovation where employees feel free to suggest bold ideas. The result? Breakthrough products, services and processes.

When you’re working on solving a problem, it’s okay to borrow ideas from other industries, cultures and experiences. You never know how a totally different field or sector can help you solve a similar challenge. Who else has a similar challenge to you, but in another industry?

I.e. What industries are great at diversifying their retail mix to get more foot traffic?

• Petrol stations?
• Hardware stores?
• Health retreats?

You may not find the perfect answer, however, there’s a very strong chance you will get fresh insight about your challenge.

Leaders who think across boundaries often find faster, more effective solutions. What’s more, making these connections can help you stay more agile, competitive and ready for cross-industry innovation.

Most people hate not knowing the answer.

However, if you want to perfect the AOPS, you need to get comfortable with a little uncertainty – resist the urge to grab the first solution that presents itself.

For example, instead of immediately deciding on a new marketing strategy, encourage your team to explore multiple options, test them quickly and adapt based on real results.

This approach can help you build solutions that are more resilient and better tailored to real-world challenges.

If this sounds all good and well but you still want some help shifting your thinking paradigms as a business leader, you should definitely check out my Creativity and Problem Solving Workshops.

Your next step is to act quickly, but thoughtfully.

Unfortunately, there’s never going to be a ‘perfect’ plan, so if you want to avoid analysis paralysis, you need to embrace the fact that your idea or solution might have some flaws.

Testing your idea in a small, manageable way is the best way forward.

Simple prototypes, pilot projects and limited rollouts will allow you to gather real-world feedback without overcommitting resources. This way, decisions aren’t made in a vacuum; they’re guided by evidence.

Approaching new ideas as experiments, rather than final answers, builds flexibility and keeps momentum high.

Try and remember that the most successful innovations were built on the back of ideas that didn’t get off the ground the first time. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s learning. No idea or solution is born fully formed, it’s repeatedly tested and iterated until the final version is ready to go to market.

If an initial lo-fi solution doesn’t work as you imagined, you gain valuable insights that sharpen your next move. You win either way. By treating missteps as stepping stones instead of dead ends, you can embrace and build a culture of resilience and creativity, two traits that are essential for long-term success. You can learn more about prototyping with my Design Thinking Workshops.

Leaders taking the time to realise that people’s needs are evolving is how you’re now able to drive a car, fly to exotic destinations and order that burger from your couch. Problems and innovation go hand-in-hand, but it’s the leaders who choose to shift their thinking that make big things happen.

It’s not always easy to step out of your comfort zone, but if you have growth on your mind, you don’t really have a choice.

Be curious, resist the temptation to go straight to the solution and watch out for your blinkers and outdated paradigms.

Let me help you power through your biggest roadblocks with a creative problem-solving or design thinking workshop designed just for you and your team – get in touch here.

*Cover photo courtesy of Sidney Perry on Unsplash