How to Solve Problems Easier: The Brutal Truth About Why Most Problem-Solving Training is Backwards

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Three weeks ago, I watched a team of Melbourne's brightest engineers spend four hours debating the colour of a printer toner cartridge. Not the brand, not the cost, not whether they even needed to print anything. The bloody colour.

And that's when it hit me: we've been teaching problem-solving completely arse-backwards for decades.

The Expensive Myth We Keep Buying

Here's what drives me mental about the problem-solving industry – and yes, I've been part of it for seventeen years, so I'm calling myself out here too. We teach people to follow steps. Six-step processes, eight-phase methodologies, twelve-point frameworks that look brilliant on whiteboards but crumble faster than a Tim Tam in hot coffee when real problems show up.

I used to religiously preach the "define, analyse, brainstorm, evaluate, implement, review" gospel. Had the PowerPoint slides. The laminated cards. Even convinced a few CFOs to spend serious money on workshops where we'd role-play problem scenarios with coloured Post-it notes.

Complete waste of time.

The truth? Real problem-solving isn't about following steps – it's about unlearning the terrible habits that stop us from seeing solutions that are already staring us in the face.

Why Smart People Make Dumb Decisions

Last month, I sat in on a crisis meeting at a Brisbane logistics company. Their biggest client was threatening to walk because deliveries were consistently three days late. The room was packed with university graduates, lean six sigma black belts, and consultants charging more per hour than most people earn in a week.

For ninety minutes, they dissected delivery routes, analysed traffic patterns, and built predictive models. Ninety bloody minutes.

Finally, the receptionist – who wasn't even supposed to be in the meeting – raised her hand. "Um, sorry, but couldn't we just call the clients when we know we're running late? Most of them said they'd be fine waiting if they knew in advance."

Silence. Then nervous laughter. Then the realisation that this 22-year-old had solved their million-dollar problem with basic human communication.

The issue wasn't the problem-solving process. It was that everyone in that room had been educated out of common sense.

The Three Things Nobody Tells You About Problems

1. Most Problems Aren't Actually Problems

Controversial opinion: roughly 68% of workplace "problems" are just people complaining about things they don't want to change themselves. I know that sounds harsh, but stick with me.

When someone says "we have a communication problem," what they usually mean is "other people aren't reading my mind" or "I don't want to have uncomfortable conversations." When teams complain about "unclear expectations," it often translates to "we'd rather guess than ask clarifying questions."

The easiest problems to solve are the ones you stop pretending are problems.

2. Solutions Are Usually Embarrassingly Simple

Remember that printer toner debate I mentioned? The real problem wasn't the colour – it was that nobody wanted to admit they'd been ordering the wrong cartridges for six months. The solution was ordering the right ones. Cost: $47. Time to implement: one phone call.

But admitting the simple solution meant admitting the mistake. So instead, they engineered complexity. Built a problem big enough to justify the embarrassment.

We do this constantly. Turn simple solutions into complex projects because complexity feels more professional. More worth our salaries.

3. The Best Problem-Solvers Are Usually Troublemakers

This one gets me in trouble at conferences, but I'll say it anyway: if you want someone who can solve real problems, hire someone who's caused a few. The people who've never rocked the boat, never questioned processes, never made anyone uncomfortable – they're brilliant at following procedures, but they're terrible at seeing what's actually broken.

The best problem-solving skills I've ever seen come from people who've been fired at least once. They understand systems because they've broken them.

The Real Problem-Solving Process (That Actually Works)

Forget the six-step nonsense. Here's what actually works:

Start with the obvious thing nobody wants to say out loud. In that logistics meeting, everyone knew communication was the issue. But admitting it meant admitting they'd been overthinking everything else.

Ask stupid questions. "Why do we do it this way?" "What happens if we don't do this at all?" "Who decided this was important?" Half the time, nobody remembers why processes exist. The other half, the person who created them left three years ago.

Try the simple thing first. Before you build the complex solution, test the embarrassingly simple one. Most problems dissolve with basic human effort.

Accept that you might be wrong. This is where most problem-solving training fails completely. It assumes the person solving the problem understands the problem correctly. Often, we don't.

I once spent six months helping a Perth manufacturing company improve their "productivity problem." Turns out their productivity was fine – they just had unrealistic expectations because their previous manager had been fudging numbers for two years. The real problem was mathematical, not operational.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Here's something that might surprise you: with all our AI tools and data analytics, we're actually getting worse at basic problem-solving. We're outsourcing pattern recognition to machines and forgetting how to think for ourselves.

A Sydney tech startup recently paid $50,000 for analytics software to understand why their customer retention was dropping. The software gave them beautiful dashboards and predictive models. Very impressive.

A week later, someone finally thought to call five customers who'd cancelled. All five said the same thing: the company had changed their payment process and made it confusing. Simple fix. Could've been discovered with thirty minutes of phone calls.

The problem isn't that we don't have enough data. It's that we've forgotten how to have conversations.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Training

Most problem-solving training focuses on tools and frameworks because they're easy to teach and measure. You can test someone's knowledge of a six-step process. You can't easily test whether they'll ask the uncomfortable question or challenge the assumption everyone takes for granted.

Real problem-solving is messier. It involves politics, emotions, and admitting when we're wrong. It requires the kind of thinking that doesn't fit neatly into competency matrices or training modules.

The best problem-solvers I know didn't learn it in workshops – they learned it by solving actual problems, making mistakes, and developing judgment through experience.

That doesn't mean training is useless. But it means most training is teaching the wrong things.

What Actually Makes the Difference

Stop trying to solve problems perfectly. Start trying to solve them quickly and cheaply, then improve from there. Perfect solutions that take six months are less valuable than decent solutions you can implement next Tuesday.

Build relationships before you need them. Half of problem-solving is knowing who to call when you're stuck. The other half is having them actually answer the phone.

Learn to disagree professionally. Most problems persist because nobody wants to tell the senior manager their pet project isn't working. Learn to deliver bad news constructively, and you'll solve problems that others can't even acknowledge exist.

And here's my final piece of advice, which will probably annoy some people: stop making everything a collaboration. Sometimes, problems need one person to make a decision and own the consequences. Democracy is wonderful for societies, but it's often terrible for problem-solving.

The Thing Nobody Talks About

You know what's funny? After seventeen years in this industry, the best problem-solvers I know rarely talk about problem-solving. They just solve things. They don't have frameworks or methodologies – they have curiosity, courage, and enough experience to know when they're overthinking.

The worst problem-solvers are usually the ones who've done the most courses on problem-solving.

Make of that what you will.

The real secret isn't learning how to solve problems better. It's learning how to stop creating them in the first place. But that's a whole other conversation – and probably another article nobody wants to admit they need to read.