Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2021

Virtue Ethics

Ethics in Action

Virtue ethics is a normative ethical theory that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than the rightness or wrongness of an action. It is one of the three major approaches in ethics, along with consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics is based on the idea that we should aim to cultivate virtuous habits that will help us act in accordance with moral values. The origin of virtue ethics can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy, especially the works of Plato and Aristotle. They argued that the goal of human life is to achieve eudaimonia, which is often translated as happiness or well-being, but also implies a sense of fulfillment and flourishing. To attain eudaimonia, one must develop and exercise the virtues, which are excellences of character that enable us to function well as rational and social beings. Some examples of virtues are courage, justice, wisdom, honesty, generosity, and loyalty. These are not fixed rules or principles, but rather flexible and context-dependent dispositions that guide our actions, thoughts, and feelings in various situations. Virtues are acquired through practice and habituation, not through following commands or calculating consequences. As Aristotle famously said, “We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts” .

Virtue Ethics

One of the distinctive features of virtue ethics is that it emphasizes the role of practical wisdom (phronesis) in moral decision-making. Practical wisdom is the ability to discern the best course of action in a given circumstance, taking into account the relevant facts, the moral values at stake, and the particular situation of the agent. It is not a scientific or theoretical knowledge, but rather a skill that is learned through experience and education. Practical wisdom enables us to apply the general ideals of virtue to concrete cases and to balance different and sometimes conflicting values. Virtue ethics has several advantages over other ethical theories. First, it provides a more realistic and holistic account of human nature and morality, recognizing that we are not only rational but also emotional, social, and embodied beings. Second, it offers a more positive and aspirational vision of ethics, encouraging us to develop our moral character and to seek excellence rather than merely avoid wrongdoing. Third, it respects the diversity and complexity of moral situations, allowing for flexibility and nuance rather than imposing rigid and universal rules.

However, virtue ethics also faces some challenges and criticisms. One is that it may be too vague or subjective to provide clear and consistent guidance for moral action. How do we define and measure the virtues? How do we resolve conflicts between different virtues or different interpretations of the same virtue? How do we deal with moral dilemmas where no option seems virtuous? Another challenge is that virtue ethics may be too demanding or elitist to be applicable to ordinary people. How can we attain the virtues in a world full of temptations, pressures, and obstacles? How can we ensure that we have the proper education and environment to foster our moral development? How can we avoid being influenced by corrupting factors such as self-interest, bias, or prejudice?

Despite these difficulties, virtue ethics remains a rich and influential tradition that has inspired many thinkers and practitioners across different fields and cultures. Some of the major variants in virtue ethics include:

Eudaimonist Virtue Ethics: This framework is based on the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia, which means happiness or well-being. It holds that the ultimate goal of human life is to achieve eudaimonia, which is possible only by developing and exercising the virtues. The virtues are excellences of character that enable us to function well as rational and social beings. The most influential version of this framework was proposed by Aristotle, who identified a list of moral and intellectual virtues and argued that they are acquired through habituation and education.

Agent-Based and Exemplarist Virtue Ethics: This framework is based on the idea that we can identify the virtues by looking at the traits and actions of moral exemplars, such as saints, heroes, or role models. It holds that the virtues are not defined by rules or principles, but by common-sense intuitions that we as observers have about admirable people. The most influential version of this framework was proposed by Michael Slote (see e.g. [Slote 2020]), who argued that the virtues are based on empathic caring and respect for others.

Target-Centered Virtue Ethics: This framework is based on the idea that we can identify the virtues by looking at the ends or goals that they aim at. It holds that the virtues are not defined by human nature or moral ideals, but by the specific context and situation in which they are exercised. The most influential version of this framework was proposed by Christine Swanton ( see e.g., [Swanton 2003]), who argued that the virtues are based on promoting the well-being of oneself and others in a pluralistic and complex world.

Ethics of Care: This framework is based on the idea that we can identify the virtues by looking at the relationships and responsibilities that we have with others. It holds that the virtues are not defined by abstract or universal values, but by concrete and particular needs and emotions. The most influential version of this framework was proposed by Carol Gilligan ( See e.g. [Gilligan 1982]), who argued that the virtues are based on caring and nurturing, especially for those who are vulnerable or dependent.

[Gilligan 1982]. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.

[Slote 2020] Slote, M. (2020). Agent-based virtue ethics. Handbuch Tugend und Tugendethik, 1-10. Springer

[Swanton 2003] Swanton, C. (2003). Virtue ethics: A pluralistic view. Clarendon Press.

Posted on Sunday, February 28, 2021

From Sustaining to Disruptive Innovation

Managers know their companies must grow. Investment capital is not easy to come by. Firms are reluctant to take risks. Your clients are economically stressed. Growth is hard, especially given today’s economic environment. Today’s managers have a problem. The status quo is not acceptable. They need innovative thinking to change the game. But not all innovations are the same. Sustaining innovation targets existing, high-end clients or customers demanding better performance than previously available. Disruptive innovation helps create a new market and value network. The types of innovation that you require will depend on the circumstances.

Established competitors usually win competitive battles over sustaining technology. Year over year they grind out incremental improvements. On occasion, they develop products that leapfrog beyond the competition. It doesn’t matter whether the innovation is technologically advanced. This strategy works for the incumbents because it results in better products that they can sell for higher margins to their best customers. Established competitors have the resources to maintain a pipeline of sustaining innovation. For many incumbents, sustaining innovation is like fixing defects – a cost a business as usual. But even for masters of this approach, there can be times when sustaining innovation is not enough. Customers or clients and the business environment may change (e.g., COVID) requiring managers to reassess their business models.

Disruptive Innovation

The term “Disruptive innovations” means inventing or reinventing business models. A technology that enables market disruptions is a disruptive technology. It is the business model and not the technology that enables and creates the disruptive effect. The market is the thing that is disrupted by innovation.

To change from sustaining to disruptive innovation, your focus should not be on the product or service currently being delivered. Rather, your attention should be redirected to the clients’ needs that the product or service attempts to meet. Disruptive innovators significantly alter and improve a product or service in ways that the market did not expect. This is innovation by thinking outside the box of existing product or service offerings. The effects of your successful disruptive innovation can be seen in two dimensions – the market structure and the product features. By discovering or segmenting a new category of customers or clients, the innovator disrupts the market structure. By altering the product or service features and quality the innovator disrupts industry cost structures.

Disrupters tend to focus on getting the business model, rather than merely the product, just right. Usually, this requires a maniacal focus on clients’ needs. Market segmentation then proceeds not merely on the basis of demographics, but also using psychographics based on clients’ goals in a particular context. As Zig Ziglar once opined, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want”. By market segmenting on the customers’ or clients’ needs, and the contexts in which those needs arise, marketing messages can be more precisely delivered. By refocusing on the customers’ / clients’ needs and context, new technologies or processes for satisfying those needs can be developed. To change from sustaining to disruptive innovation, you first need to resegment the market based on your clients’ needs and context, before working through the solution details.

Clients' needs problem statement not biased by existing solution

Your first step to change from sustaining to disruptive innovation, then, is capturing the clients’ needs in a clear, unbiased, problem statement. Talking to clients and customers can provide insight into their perceived needs. Your discussions here are, unfortunately, often biased. The inherent bias comes from many sources – existing offers in the market, the clients’ or customers’ world view, etc. Additional observation approaches can help to develop a broader perspective. Refining these inputs into a clear problem statement can be a challenging, often iterative process. The iterations happen in conversation with clients or customers, but also in the analysis with reframing perspectives on the observations. With business model innovations, in particular, iterating through technical, legal, and business perspectives, can provide a broader perspective on the clients’ needs and context.

We can help!

Framing and reframing the problem from different perspectives can enable you to see past constraints. These constraints may not exist from a different perspective. Developing a client-centric, solution-agnostic problem statement can enable the needed creative thinking. You need a broader perspective of the clients’ problem to expose a wider variety of potential solutions. Our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements can help you get your clients’ needs problem statement right.

Whether you are a researcher, business professional, or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your thinking on the most important challenges so you can think outside the box for your clients. We have a brief survey that should take less than 2 minutes of your time to complete. You can start right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your clients’ needs problem statement contact me.

Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2021

When to Think Outside The Box

Thinking outside the box simply means that you’re willing to consider different solutions and methods for reaching your goal or desired outcome. You want to get from point A to point B, but you don’t necessarily need or want to take the tried and true route to get there (which is inside the box). This can also mean considering some creative alternatives in terms of the goals or desired outcomes. Moving the goalposts, even a little, can have an outsized impact on the game. The phrase is often associated with the Nine-Dot Puzzle, where the box is sometimes literally drawn around the nine dots, framing a solution space, or maybe inferred as the paper on which the dots are drawn.

In a more general sense, the box is a perspective that provides a set of constraints on possible solutions. A new perspective looks beyond that set of constraints to enable innovative thinking. Thinking differently can have a powerful and positive effect on your career. As an entrepreneur, this is why you need to think outside the box: it can help you get ahead of your competition in identifying and exploiting opportunities.

Only incremental progress lies inside the box

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. – George Bernard Shaw

Sometimes, we can get pretty stuck in our ways. We become complacent, just going through the motions, doing what we need to but no more. We’re scared to deviate from the set route and make our own paths. If everyone just accepted things the way they are, then there would never be any innovation or improvement in the world.

A lot of the time we’re not even really present in what we’re doing – we’re on auto-pilot. If Thomas Edison was complacent and figured things were good enough the way they were, light bulbs and the electricity to power them might never have been commercially developed. If he hadn’t thought outside the box, the world could (literally) be a very dim place. Identifying topics where complacency exists can identify an opportunity for unconventional thinking.

More things are variable than you may expect

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
— Henry Ford

If you view things as unchangeable, then nothing will ever change for the better. By thinking outside the box, you are questioning the status quo. Asking how you could improve an experience, product, or service for your clients. This allows you to keep growing as a person and as an entrepreneur. Questioning the status quo can provide the new perspectives necessary for intelligent and forward-thinking decisions in business.

When first articulating a client’s problem statement, it is not uncommon to have a lot of unstated assumptions regarding unchangeable factors. Let’s face it – factors that can’t be changed or controlled are boring. In reality, many factors change with time, geography, etc. Indeed, seemingly arbitrary changes in environmental factors may be causing the clients’ difficulties. A better understanding of the clients’ problem space may enable better controls to be identified. As an example, mankind can’t control the weather. On a smaller scale, heating and air conditioning significantly improve the quality of life for millions of people. Specialized “clean rooms” enable various industrial processes (from semiconductor manufacturing to biomedical research). Just because the initial client problem description assumes some factor is unchangeable, does not mean that change and control of that factor is impossible.

Outside the box perspectives

“The task is…not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.” ― Erwin Schrödinger

Thinking outside the box can expand your worldview, allowing you to have a greater perspective. This includes not only the events and happenings in your career but also in other dimensions in your life. When you’re willing to consider alternative points of view and ways of doing things, you’ll be more open to a variety of different points of view and potential solutions. Moving from the client’s problem to a solution is not always a straight line. Creativity is often required in developing an appropriate perspective before attempting solution innovation.

This need for a new perspective is why so many businesses bring in outside consultants to help come up with new ideas. The consultants don’t carry the burden of constraints on their thinking from existing tools and processes. Their version of Outside-The-Box Thinking can dream up and offer up wildly new ideas that get people excited and lead to innovative pivots etc.

We can help!

Framing and reframing the problem from different perspectives can enable you to see past constraints. These constraints may not exist from a different perspective. Developing a client-centric, solution-agnostic problem statement can enable the needed creative thinking. For wider variety of potential solutions to be exposed, you need a broader perspective of the clients’ problem. Our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements can help you get your client program statement right.

Whether you are a researcher, business professional, or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your thinking on the most important challenges so you can think outside the box for your clients. We have a brief survey that should take less than 2 minutes of your time to complete. You can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2021

Change the Game: You could be the Game-Changer

There is an episode of the vintage TV show “I Love Lucy” where Lucy works wrapping candies on an assembly line. The candies keep coming closer together as the line speeds up. Lucy, and her sidekick Ethel, scramble harder to keep up, though they keep getting further behind. Then Lucy finally says, “I think we’re fighting a losing game”. Your business initiatives may have you feeling like that – working harder and harder to keep up rather than working smarter. In Lucy’s case, the increasing assembly line speed had some comedic value. It is no laughing matter, however, if your business initiatives are not seeing the results you need. Increasing costs (e.g. effort) and reduced value (e.g., customer traction, efficiency) are signs that it is time to change the game.

Automating a broken process (like Lucy’s) just accelerates the costs. Rather than fighting a losing game, recognize that it’s time to change the game to one that you can succeed at. Analyzing your broken process may not help if you are working on the wrong problem. In every sector and region, reshaping our world, are disruptive and innovative game-changers. These may be start-ups or larger corporates, or even social entrepreneurs. They are ambitious, stretching vision with enlightened purpose. Gamechangers see markets as kaleidoscopes of infinite possibilities, assembling and defining them to their advantage. They find their own space, then shape it in their own vision. Most of all game-changers have great ideas. They don’t believe in being slightly cheaper or slightly better. They out-think their competition. By thinking bigger and differently, game-changers are solving a different, better, problem to their competition.

Game-Changing : not just for sports

Lucy’s assembly line, and the sports arena, are not the only place game-changing plays are made. Through innovation, and strategic vision, we can change the game in business deals, in our career, in relationships, and more. In the non-profit world, “changing the game” can enable a path to relief for those that need it most. When we articulate the game we are playing, we can examine further with questions like, “what are the rules of this game?”, “how am I keeping score?” “Is this game serving the needs of my clients and myself?”

Consider this thought experiment – suppose a new entrant (e.g., a startup) is competing against an incumbent (e.g. a large company). If the new entrant decides to offer the product (or some part of it) for free, (e.g., as open-source software) and chooses to monetize its customer base through some other business model, this changes the rules of the game. Such action with a radically different business model changes customer perceptions. Thus changing the marginal return from existing competencies that the incumbent has. This reshuffles the market: winning no longer requires greater competencies along the status-quo dimension, some new competitive dimension becomes the measure that determines the winner. In this new game, the existing incumbent company might have no real advantage compared to the new entrant.

Be the game-changer you need to see

The business model is just a type of model, and may not accurately represent the needs and purposes of your business stakeholders and most importantly, your clients. All models are wrong, but some are useful, (according to George Box). What is the model surrounding your business challenge? The rules are you are playing by? Parameters you think you need to follow? What beliefs do you have about the Client’s situation? What would happen if you reversed or changed the old model’s beliefs? Is there a better foundation or structure or perspective would better serve your goals? your clients’ goals? What new perspective feels empowering? Whenever you feel stuck, see if you can’t find a new, more empowering perspective, and a bigger opportunity to serve your clients.

It’s easy to get distracted by the tools and processes in your current environment. This is especially true when you need to keep the current business running while finding a better way forward. But you won’t be thinking differently if you just focus on the same old tools and processes. Such a focus leads to merely incremental rather than disruptive innovation. To avoid such issues, a clearer statement of your client’s problem is needed before attempting to solve it. Our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements can help you get your client program statement right.

We can help you change the game

Whether you are a researcher, business professional, or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey takes less than 2 minutes and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

Posted on Thursday, January 14, 2021

Technical, Business, and Legal Perspectives

Technical Perspectives

Technology refers to industrial, practical, or mechanical arts and applied sciences that are deployed to deliver a particular solution. The Technical Perspective provides a good, comprehensive picture of the system at an appropriate level of abstraction, appropriate for the objective of the modeling, and the size of the system being modeled.

The Technical Perspective defines the views of the system using models, processes, and other constructs of that particular technology. The various models used by the technology show how people (or other technical entities) interact with processes at various locations within the system. These technology models recognize a limited set of other technical entities and the things they handle and use. The models also show how these different aspects and things must statically and/or dynamically relate to one another, to produce the desired results. Technology models place emphasis on the structures, conditions, and interaction of entities, roles, locations, and processes and often rely on a specific modeling language (e.g. UML, BPMN) to capture the model. Specific technologies are identified (e.g., Computational aspects, such as storage, computers, and communications), where necessary to describe a solution with specificity. A design pattern for the usage of particular technologies may also be identified or defined.

Taken together, the technical events (and rules), technical roles, technical entities, technical activities, and technical locations describe the system’s elements from a technical perspective. The technical perspective describes the process, or method, explaining how a specific result is to be achieved. The effectiveness of solutions developed from technical perspectives are often evaluated in terms of their efficiency, or resource utilization (e.g., energy consumption, throughput).

Business Perspectives

The Business Perspective defines the business level view of the problem using the resources available to the business and the tools available to the business to achieve its commercial objectives. While there are many corporate stakeholders, for most businesses, their commercial objectives include profitability from their transactions with clients or customers; efficiency in internal operations, and supplier interactions; minimization of regulatory oversight costs; and strategic positioning for advantage against competitors. The business perspective shows clients’ (and employees’) interaction with business processes and resources at various locations within the business.

The business perspective and technical perspective can address the same problem domain at different abstraction levels. The business perspective may focus on the level of a sales process with offers, and other marketing activities to influence or build a relationship with the client, resulting in a contract, followed by service delivery, while a technical perspective may focus on more detailed technical systems and entities (e.g., messages, protocols, databases, etc.) that might implement or support a business process like a sales transaction.

A business perspective can assume a particular business model; or consider an alternative business model or business practice. A business model may be impacted by the scale of responsibility of a particular business manager. The effectiveness of solutions and decisions developed from a business perspective is usually measured with accounting metrics and market or economic statistics.

Legal Perspectives

A legal perspective is relating to or characteristic of the law or the profession of law; and analyses the problem in terms that are recognized, enforceable, or having a remedy at law rather than in equity. There are three essential components to a legal perspective – (1) the identification of the client, (2) the legal right, obligation, or risk, at issue within the circumstances of the problem and, (3) the posture of the client with respect to that legal issue (e.g., defensive vs offensive) i.e., the client’s objectives.

The purpose and goals of the law as an instrument of public policies for society at large, provide a context for the legal perspective. Different theories of law can be used by lawyers to define, explain, compare, and distinguish the facts and circumstances of particular controversies in their clients’ favor. For lawyers in private practice, clients may be individuals or other legal entities (e.g., corporations). Lawyers in administrative or judicial government roles may be representing those governmental organizations. Focusing on their clients’ potential for legal issues and outcomes enables the legal perspective to avoid some of the concerns of other parties’ views.

The narrative of a particular problem statement or situation may involve multiple legal issues, claims, rights, obligations, or risks at issue. The nature and likelihood of legal risks to business operations or other situations can be difficult to predict with certainty at any given moment as it involves some estimation of the likelihood of events occurring and the severity of the impact should the events occur, as well as the interpretations of those events that may be constructed by others (e.g., a court).

The client’s posture (with respect to, and awareness of, particular legal issues, and possible legal remedies) may change between the moment of a particular incident and upon later reflection and other considerations. The clients’ range of acceptable goals, and the likelihood of achievement, also impacts the legal posture to be adopted.

Triangulating the Problem Statement and Innovation Potential

Framing and reframing perspectives on problems highlights the differences between different perspectives. The contrast achieved by describing a problem statement from these three different perspectives enables insight into opportunities for new innovation. A common innovation pattern is for technology innovation to enable new business services or practices which are then reinforced by reducing legal risks through experience and authoritative legal decisions that then enable further technology innovation in a reinforcing cycle. While this is a common innovation pattern, disruptive innovation is not restricted to technology. Innovations in business practices or legal concepts may also provide significant opportunities.

When developing the problem statement for your client, understanding the technical, business and legal perspectives can impact the scope of the desired future state as well as constraints on viable solutions. If you are developing client problem statements, you might be interested in our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements.

Everyone has Client’s problems that they need to solve, but are they solving the right problem? Are you solving your best problem? Whether you are a researcher, business professional or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey tackles less than 2 minutes, and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client’s problem statement, contact me.

Posted on Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Framing and Reframing Perspectives

Framing is a mental structure that is built upon the beliefs you have about yourself, your roles, your resources, your circumstances, and about other people. It is a structure you use to ascribe meaning in what you observe of the world around you. In other words, the meaning you perceive from any event is dependent upon how you frame it in your mind. As such, your frames shape how you perceive the world, yourself, and others. Our human perceptual capacity is like a magnifying glass that we can move over text or images. We focus in on something and often lose awareness of what originally surrounded that magnified area. It’s like cropping photos on our digital cameras. We crop the image to our preferred view of the scene and forget the bigger picture. Frames are inherent in your perception of the world; as such, they are either helpful within the context you are using them, or they are not. Frames can be optimistic or pessimistic, expand your possibilities or limit them (e.g. a growth or fixed mindset – (Dweck 2008)). Frames are therefore appropriate or inappropriate, good or bad, depending on your objectives. The more control you can achieve of the frame, the more options you have for selecting a frame that is more appropriate for your objectives. Framing and reframing perspectives on problem statements brings greater clarity to that problem statement.

When you decide to work on a project with others, you frame that problem with a scope in a project statement so that everyone knows what is included and excluded. With an explicit project statement, everyone can understand what a successful project outcome is and what they need to focus on in order to complete their part of the project. In the same way, the frames you use on a daily basis provide a context for your thoughts, attitudes, decisions, and actions. They help guide the direction of your thoughts, attitudes, decisions, and actions to help you accomplish your desired outcomes. Your desired outcomes may be an internal change (e.g. in creating new habits) or an external change in the world around you. Problems have been described at the discrepancy between the current state and some desired future state (your objective). Just as a project statement guides the completion of a project, a problem statement can be used to guide the solution of a problem to achieve your objectives.

When you’re stuck on a problem it often helps to look at it from another perspective. A “fresh pair of eyes” can be all that you need to come up with a great solution. Reframing is seeing the current situation from a different perspective. Reframing can be tremendously helpful in problem solving, decision making and learning. With reframing, one shifts one’s perspective to be more empowered to act effectively and impactfully. The goal of reframing is to expand your vision of a problem’s context so that you can consider a wider range of interpretations of what’s happened (the current state), or a wider range of potential future states (the desired outcomes), or a wider range of control mechanisms to transform the current state into the desired outcomes. Many times, merely reframing one’s perspective on a situation can also help people change how they feel about the situation. Reframing enables a choice of how to frame a problem, an opportunity for empowerment through learning and decision making. Recall that some frames may be more or less helpful for achieving particular objectives. Frame selection choices may enable easier, more efficient problem resolution, and/ or greater impact or value in the achievable outcomes.

Framing and reframing perspectives on problems

Framing and reframing perspectives on problems highlights the differences between different perspectives. When we consciously reframe, we look for patterns, examine our filters, and question our perceptions, we can emerge with a new picture of reality. We can reframe by shifting the perspective in a variety of dimensions (e.g. time, people, risk, resources (input scale), results (output scale). Many problems require participation by others for solution. Truly wicked problems require significant attitude shift by large numbers of other stakeholders. If we share our new perceptions with others and hear theirs, we can shift perspective into an enlarged reality. It can create change and movement, in personal relationships, in organizations, and even society at large.

The first step in solving your problem is to define the problem with a problem statement so that you can focus on the important aspects of your problem and remove the distractions that obscure its essential features. The process of selecting the essential aspects of your problem creates a (problem solving) framework for its resolution. Even without an explicit problem-solving framework, you inherently select some subset of information about your problem. If the problem is framed in such a way that essential elements remain obscured, then this frame may not be very helpful to resolving the problem. When consciously using a Problem-Solving Framework, you explicitly identify the essential features that you want to see in your problem statement. Using and explicit frame to structure your problem statement provides a starting point. Framing and reframing perspectives on the problem statement typically proceeds by asking a series of questions from a new perspective and then recreating the problem statement based on that perspective.

Is your client’s problem sensitive to the way it is framed?

Is your client’s problem sensitive to the way it is framed? Your client may not recognize the impact of framing the problem statement on potential problem solutions. Viable solutions may be cheaper and easier to develop if they only need to be applicable to clients within a reduced scope developed by refining the problem statement.

When developing the problem statement for your client, understanding diverse perspectives can impact the scope of the desired future state as well as constraints on viable solutions. If you are developing client problem statements, you might be interested in our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements. Everyone has Client’s problems that they need to solve, but are they solving the right problem? Are you solving your best problem? Whether you are a researcher, business professional or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey tackles less than 2 minutes and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

References

(Dweck 2008) Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House Digital, Inc..

Posted on Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Temporal Perspective on the Problem

When documenting a client’s problem, one of the categories of information that the problem statement should include is information about the when the problem occurred. Humans are creatures of “time,” and for many of us it is a fundamental factor in the way we perceive the world, but notions of time vary. Temporal perspectives are an essential characteristic of culture, and cultural norm often follow from it. Around the world, different people live their daily lives at different tempos, and observe a different pace of life. This may be reflected in the speed at which they walk, the speed of decision-making processes, or how accurately they keep their clocks. The Hopi tribe of Arizona, USA, for example, have a language that lacks verb tenses, and their language avoids all linear constructions in time. The notion of cyclical time is common to religions like Buddhism and Hinduism; and there is considerable controversy among religious scholars as to precisely how “time” is employed in the divine scheme of things. Such cultural temporal perspectives can obviously impact perceptions of problems that we face. A temporal perspective on the problem can bring additional insight and clarity to the client’s problem statement

Temporal perspectives on Problems — Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

Time is an essential dimension of the world around us. Temporal concepts are fundamental constructs and assumptions of human cognition. Temporal constructs include not just both clock time and psychological time, but also time-sensitive processes; time frame, time courses, and time lags; and the details of the temporal context as a whole. This may be evidenced by temporal language production and comprehension, temporal judgment and temporal reasoning. The concepts of past, present, and future are important mental constructs for structuring experiences. This allows us to organize our perceptual experiences and navigate, mentally, through time. This structuring of experience enables us to bound the temporal scope of decision making and perceived problems

As creatures of time, humans also change their temporal perspectives. Children develop temporal concepts through life experience and typically view temporal concepts with short time horizons. Adults have a dynamic and flexible temporal perspective – we live in the ever-changing present, and our perception of past, present, and future keeps changing. Mature Adults (e.g., grandparents) may develop temporal perspectives that cover longer time horizons (e.g., generational). Time goes so fast that, often, we don’t even notice it. Only when we take a moment of rest, can we see the imprint it leaves on the things around us. Time is a limited resource and people experience strain as they attempt to manage their life, including time pressure, time-based work-family conflict, and time urgency. The attitudes we have towards time can be a significant factor in our perspectives on the problems faced, our decision making, and our performance in resolving those problems.

It seems that change and time are inseparable: changes take time; are located and ordered in time; and they are separated by time. Even though change clearly takes time (as all changes occur at a finite rate), time does not seem to make change. Most environmental parameters change with time (e.g., temperature, light etc.). With sufficiently large timescales (e.g. geological time) even the ground on which we stand may change due to the effects of time. So too the problems we face can seem quite different when viewed from temporal perspectives with different timescales

Time Perceptions vs Temporal Perspectives

Time perception is a field within psychology cognitive linguistics and neuroscience that refers to the subjective experience, or sense, of time, as measured by someone’s own perception. In addition, different types of sensory information details (auditory, tactile, visual, etc.) are processed at different speeds by the complex systems of our neural mechanisms. Our brains learn to overcome these speed disparities to create a temporally unified representation of the external world. To get events correct timewise, our sensory systems must wait (about a tenth of a second) for the slowest information to arrive. This has the disadvantage of pushing our perceptions slightly into the past; but enables us to assemble perceptually coherent patterns and trends. Many of the problems we face occur at slow timescales relative to our perception, allowing us to develop analyses of the problem; before interacting with it. Some problems occur at on timescales comparable to our perception where the time to analyze the problem is not available, and our response may be simply autonomic reactions without conscious thought. Phenomena from our problems can also occur at timescales much faster than our perceptual threshold. At these timescales we can only directly perceive samples which may be difficult for our sensory systems to interpret, though electronic sensors and other mechanisms may enable indirect observations.

We are all time travelers in the sense that we all draw on past memories, experience the present and look forward to the future unfolding. Our conceptions of time are fundamental to our reasoning about the sequence of events and consequential decision making. The temporal aspects include temporal dimensions of events, time granularities, temporal context, temporal patterns, event order, and retrospective and proactive operations. Our assumptions and expectations (e.g. on norms of behavior) often condition our responses. Sequencing events is fundamental to identifying trends, correlation, causation and the controllable parameters we use to manipulate our environment, and the problems we experience within it.

A temporal perspective refers to a specific point of view or attitude that an actor holds about time. Temporal perspectives involve attitudes, thoughts, and affective tone regarding our personal past, present, and future. Marketing professionals look at temporal perspectives as situational characteristics that deal with the effect of time on consumer behavior. A temporal perspective on the problem includes the actors temporal perspectives as well as the temporal aspects of the problem context.

Conflicts can occur between different with different temporal perspectives – (e.g., in a financial investment context, investors with current or future temporal perspectives might be conflicted by disclosure policies – disclosure of a possible risk harms a firm’s current investors, but failure to disclose the risk harms the firm’s future investors). Time perspectives (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999) involve a tendency to focus on a particular segment of time: past, present, or future. Your attitudes to your past or future may evaluate positively or negatively. Your attitude to the present may also be impacted by temporal concepts resulting in perspectives including: “fatalism” (no control), “hedonism” (no consequences) and “carpe diem” (seize the day). For individuals, balance and positivity comes from making positive use of the past, finding healthy ways to relish the present, and routinely making plans for an improved future; finding a temporal perspective which realizes essential psychological needs and deeply held values. Selecting different temporal perspectives may enable new decision-making opportunities in dealing with the problems of life as we experience it.

Is your client’s problem sensitive to a temporal perspective on the problem?

Temporal Perspective on Problems — Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

Is your client’s problem sensitive to a temporal perspective on the problem? They may not be aware of or report such temporal sensitivities. Your client may not recognize the impact of the their temporal attitudes and context in their problem statement or on potential problem solutions. Viable solutions may be cheaper and easier to develop if they only need to be applicable to clients within a reduced scope that can be developed through reframing the temporal perspective on the problem via the problem statement.

When developing the problem statement for your client, understanding the geographic perspective can impact the scope of the desired future state as well as constraints on viable solutions. Our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements can help you get your client program statement right.

Everyone has Client’s problems that they need to solve, but are they solving the right problem? Are you solving your best problem? Whether you are a researcher, business professional or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey takes less than 2 minutes and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

Posted on Monday, January 11, 2021

Geographic Perspective on Problems

When documenting a client’s problem, one of the categories of information that the problem statement should include is information about the location of the problem. Location matters for understanding a wide variety of processes and phenomena, whether directly related to human activity or not. A focus on “real world” relationships and dependencies among the phenomena and processes that give character to any location or place is a contrasting perspective to most other disciplines that treat them in isolation. Places are natural laboratories for the study of complex relationships among processes and phenomena. Geographic boundaries can enable independent operating instances of processes and phenomena generating potentially divergent results that may be explainable in terms of the geographic context. Capturing this geographic perspective on problems as part of the problem statement starts to scope the geographic boundary of the Client’s problem.

Geographic Perspectives on Problems — Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

Geographers recognize that the scale of observation – the boundaries of the pace under study – also matters for understanding geographic processes and phenomena at a place. This geographic perspective on problems inherently provides a geographic scope to the problem.Changing the spatial scale of analysis can provide important insights into geographic processes and phenomena and into understanding how processes and phenomena at different scales are related. Geographic boundaries demarcate contiguous places with common characteristics. Those characteristics might be topological, meteorological, cultural, political, resources environmental conditions or some other dimension of processes and phenomena. Identifying the scales at which particular phenomena exhibit maximum variation provides important clues about the geographic, as well as the temporal, scope of the controlling mechanisms.

Geographic approaches associate meaning with locations or places. Locations or places are commonly referenced in two dimensional spatial representations. Maps and atlases are common examples of such two-dimensional representations. Three-dimensional placement may be important in specific applications, e.g. navigation in aeronautical, submersible, or complex urban environments. The enduring dimension of the geographic approaches is the significance of spatial scales, from the global to the highly local. The data correlated with the spatial representation may also have multiple dimensions, (often including a time dimension to illustrate changes). Geographers may be challenged to provide effective visualizations with such high dimensional data. Such visualizations can, however, be very effective in illustrating the scope and scale of a problem. Recent trends in adoption and deployment of big data have facilitated the development of various programming languages and tools and resources to facilitate such analyses.

Geographic perspectives on problems that matter

A perspective is a framework that can be used to interpret the meanings of experiences, events, places, persons, cultures, resources and physical environments. Thinking with a geographic perspective on problems is a powerful tool that can be used to develop a more nuanced and complex understanding of the world. Where something occurs is the spatial perspective; how life forms interact with the physical environment is the ecological perspective. This perspective is particularly helpful for problems that matter because these problems often have a significant emotional impact from individual narratives.

Problems often exhibit different behavior in different geographic contexts, or other spatial patterns. Problems that matter impact people, and their geographic distributions is far from uniform, being impacted by a number of geographic boundaries. Geographic analysis of spatial analysis can therefore provide new insight into the problem statement. This insight can identify boundaries on problems correlated with processes and phenomena observable from a geographic perspective.

Is your client’s problem location sensitive?

Is your client’s problem location sensitive? They may report the location where they last experienced the problem, but probably failed to identify other locations where the same problem might occur. Your client may not recognize the impact of location on potential problem solutions. Solutions that have to span multiple geographic boundaries (whether physical or non-physical) may be more complex and expensive. Conversely, viable solutions may be cheaper and easier to develop if they only need to be applicable to clients within a reduced geographic scope.

When developing the problem statement for your client, understanding the geographic perspective on problems can impact the scope of the desired future state as well as constraints on viable solutions. If you are developing client problem statements, you might be interested in our free Guide to Writing Problem Statements. Everyone has Client’s problems that they need to solve, but are they solving the right problem? Are you solving your best problem? Whether you are a researcher, business professional or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey tackles less than 2 minutes and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

Posted on Sunday, January 10, 2021

Problems that Matter

Dictionary definitions of problems distinguish between exercises in mathematical operations (e.g., construction of geometric proofs) and questions involving some doubt, difficulty or uncertainty that may be proposed for solution or discussion. Mathematical operations may be used in developing a solution. Problems that matter to people are more often ideas conceptualized in non-mathematical terms. Problems are essentially unmet human needs. These problems can be also viewed as an opportunity for innovation. There is a diversity of problems in the world around us- from chronic diseases, energy, fiscal policy to more mundane decision-making aspects of modern life. Many of the most challenging problems lack singular “silver-bullet” solutions.

Human nature drives us to focus on and solve problems that matter. These are the problems or challenges that relate to real human needs. Many are familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. Manfred Max-Neef also proposed a taxonomy of needs: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, and freedom. While we may be focused on our own immediate needs, all humans have multiple needs, and there are billions of humans on our planet with multiple needs, and all these other peoples’ problems matter.

Innovation for problems that matter

Thomas Edison once explained his approach to innovation succinctly: “I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.” The most successful businesses tend to be born out of that sweet spot where what the world needs intersects with what you are deeply passionate about. We all want to solve problems that matter. We feel connected to the decisions we make; and the impact they have on people. When we are working on these sorts of important problems that we all care about, it becomes an emotional process.

Solving problems that matter has an impact on those people whose needs are now met through this innovation. The innovation of a solution to a problem may impact one person, or provide an aggregate solution affecting many people. Impact happens in a variety of ways – through the entrepreneurial ventures; through research publications; and, most importantly, through the actors (in the problem) who’s behavior and lives change. The metrics used to measure the scale of the impact will vary with the goals of the specific innovation – e.g. Physical event statistics (temperature, time between events, number of successful outcomes), monetary value, reported satisfaction, etc.

There are a multiplicity of approaches to innovating problems into solutions. Some methods involve direct action (e.g., where control variables are accessible), while others take an indirect approach by influencing external stakeholders. Some approaches provide temporary solutions (e.g. maintain the status quo in the face of disruptive events); or lead to incremental improvements while others are truly disruptive and transformative. The world is full of a bewildering number of organizations that may be relevant to your problem: government agencies, nonprofits, large corporations, etc. These organizations offer different kinds of resources and pursue different opportunities and platforms to effect change. They comply with different legal, operational, and tax regimes across different countries. Regardless of the solution approach, an effective problem statement is required.

Innovations can be developed at different levels of organizational, or technological abstraction. You can work on a organizational challenge through the United Nations, the national government, a non-profit or for-profit corporation or one-on-one. Innovations on technology challenges can be focused in different ways. For example, focused on a specific deployment, a particular type of solution architecture, or more generic technology independent frameworks. Technology innovations (e.g., Artificial intelligence) can enable the opportunity for other innovations through automating certain tasks. But these need to be applied to the context of the problem that matters. Innovations at higher levels of abstraction can have a much larger impact; but are harder to assess, iterate, and implement. Working directly with people can give you immediate feedback and a firsthand view of the human impact; but are often constrained to a smaller population.

Innovators, Innovation and transformation

Innovators have diverse motivations and incentives for engaging with particular problems. There are more reasons than there are people. For some, it is just a job; for others, maybe, it is a more lucrative job. Some love the challenge, some want to give back, while others are looking to “save” or “empower” other people. Some may engage to satisfy their ego, to earn bragging rights, or to discover the thrill and adventure of problem solving in an exotic locale.

Innovating solutions to problems that matter is not a “save-the-world mission”; but rather a rigorous, multidisciplinary, integrative discipline that requires collaboration to deliver impact. Innovator in interdisciplinary teams may share a common interest in harnessing the power of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and design to find practical and sustainable ways to improve the human condition. The may value rigorous data-driven and evidence-based approaches to create and deliver new products and services that transform ways of thinking and doing. But science, technology, mathematics and design don’t help if applied to solve the wrong problem, or people don’t adopt it. The answers for problems that matter often require attitude adjustments from various stakeholders.

Industry transformation is not about solving problems for the clients that matter, but about working with clients that focus on the problems that matter. Investors celebrate disruptive technologies for the profit they promise or fear them for the losses they could generate. What is revenue like, what are the margin structures, are there network effects, what is defensibility, how are engagement and retention numbers trending? These are all important ways to evaluate how large and valuable a business can be. However, it is particularly satisfying when a company marries strong performance with a mission to solve some of the largest problems our society faces. The age of judging companies only on their longevity is now past. Great companies solve problem that matter – new workplaces, new food sources, new medicines, etc. What problems matter to you and your clients?

Reframing the problems that matter

If you’re going to go through the hell of building an organization (whether for-profit or not), you might as well come out the other side having built something to solve a problem that matters. A big problem can be solved by solving little problems; but keep the end goal in mind. The happiest and most successful people don’t just love what they do. They are obsessed with solving an important problem, a problem that matters to them. It’s actually a lot easier to work intensely on solving a problem you are really passionate about. Take the time to identify which of the problems in the world you are passionate about solving. Life is just too short to build things that don’t make the world better.

Is your client’s problem sensitive to the way it is framed? They may not be aware of or report such sensitivities. Your client may not recognize the impact of framing their problem statement on potential problem solutions. Conversely, viable solutions may be cheaper and easier to develop if they only need to be applicable to clients within a reduced scope that can be developed through reframing the problem statement.

Everyone has Client’s problems that they need to solve, but are they solving the right problem? Are you solving your best problem? Whether you are a researcher, business professional or social entrepreneur, the solutions you develop to the problems that you face matter! We’d like to hear your view of the most important challenges in writing problem statements for your clients. We have a brief survey on the most important challenges that should take less than 2 minutes to complete. The survey takes less than 2 minutes and you can get started right away by going to this link. I look forward to sharing these insights and resources with you.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help bringing the power of perspective to your client problem statement contact me.

Posted on Saturday, December 5, 2020

The Problem Statement Problem

Problems have been described at the discrepancy between the current state and some desired future state. A problem-cause-solution pattern is common as a critical thinking approach providing argumentation supporting proposed solutions. This approach is particularly attractive if existing predictive models based on the causal actions are available. Based on new inputs to the model, existing predictive models provide a mathematical basis for calculating (predicted) new results within the limitations of the model. As a mathematical technique, predictive models have been successfully applied in a variety field from scientific endeavors to commercial activities like algorithmic stock trading, predicting accident risk for auto insurance, and healthcare outcomes.

When considering potential bias in problem solving, the predictive model is often a starting place. A good model is both as accurate as possible, and as simple as possible making it easy to understand and apply – and also easy to misapply if its limitations are not understood. Most models reduce the amount of control data because this simplifies the model enabling easier model development, validation and usage. Models are typically validated over a limited range of control variable values, but reality may not be constrained to that range. Complex systems in the real world are often affected by multiple control variables, and those may interact in interesting non-linear ways. The phenomenon being modelling is typically assumed to have a stable pattern of behavior, but this assumption is not always true. Humans, animals and artificial intelligence software can all exhibit learning behaviors that evolve over time. Predictive models of systems with learning behaviors developed at one point in time, may not be valid after new behaviors are learned. While model developers strive for prediction accuracy, most models are approximations. The degree of precision of an approximation may limit the predictive power of a model.

The tools we use alter our perception of the problems we solve – various paraphrased along the line of if one has a hammer, one tends to look for nails (quote investigator 2014). Even professionals with specialist expertise in particular fields tend to look problems from the perspective of their profession. Indeed, they may risk liability issues if they deviate from professional norms. The approach of identifying a cause may be seen as argumentative or evaluative, e.g., when there are multiple causes or explanations leading to a problem. The model development approach looks for variables that can be isolated and controlled, but these may not be the only causes of problems. In a legal (liability) context, there is a notion of a proximate cause being a cause that produces particular, foreseeable consequences. This typically requires the court to determine that the injury would have occurred, “but for” the negligent act or omission (the proximate cause). The widespread adoption of big data collection and artificial intelligence techniques (e.g., machine learning) has increased attention on the need to move beyond statistical correlation to prove causality. Recent progress in development of causality proofs (e.g. causality notations – (Pearl & Mackenzie 2018) has enabled significant improvements in development of predictive models. While the problem-cause-solution pattern is common, there are situations where action (or a solution) is required without establishment of a cause. The continuing operation of the system may not afford time for causal determination, or the costs on inaction may be too great. In this action bias context, the objective may be to make “reasonable” actions (e.g. to avoid known bad outcomes) rather than attempt to resolve the problem.

A desired future state may be described in objective terms; a desired state, however, must be desired by some real human (ie. it is subjective) as non- humans do not have desires. Broad consensus on some desired future state may provide some aura of objectivity. “Wicked problems” lie in the area where broad consensus of desired future state does not exist. If there is no consensus on the desired future state, then that lack of consensus likely applies not just to proposed solutions, or causality model selections, but also to the problem statement.

Problem statements delimit the scope of the problem to avoid extraneous matters and focus on the information relevant to the problem. The problem statement provides a context and forms a perspective on the problem. Perspectives include not just data observations, but also some meaning associated with those observations, focusing attention on the most relevant/ important observations. Framing the problem from different perspectives may result in different solutions, e.g., different problem statement will likely have different causal explanations proposed, leading to different solution proposals.There is often a rush to solving a problem rather than clarifying the problem statement first. A problem statement should provide clarity around the four W’s of the problem:

Who – Who does the problem affect? Do they recognize it as a problem? Has anyone else validated that the problem is real? Who realizes the value if the problem is solved? Who else might have a useful perspective on the problem?
What – What is the nature of the problem? What attempts have been made to resolve the problem?
When – When does the problem happen? What are the antecedent and contemporary event? What is the Temporal Perspective?
Where – Where does this problem arise? Is there observational data of the problem context correlated with its occurrence? What is the Geographic Perspective on the problem?

When it comes to your problem – what type of problem solver are you? Ad hoc or intuitive problem solvers risk spending their effort solving the wrong problem and not achieving the impact they might hope for. A systematic approach to capturing the problem statement and then reframing it from multiple perspectives may take more time initially to develop the problem statement, but avoids the risk of solving the wrong problem. Why is the problem worth solving? Why are you trying to solve it? Once you have your client’s problem statement, you can then refine it to focus on the problems that matter for greater impact.

A course on the use of perspective to refine problem statements is now available.

Problem Perspectives Course

If you need help with your problem statement contact me.

References

(quote investigator 2014) https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/08/hammer-nail/

( Pearl & Mackenzie 2018) Pearl, J., & Mackenzie, D. (2018). The book of why: the new science of cause and effect. Basic Books.