Quotes About Problem-solving

When USUN diplomats committed the cardinal sin of 'admiring the problem,' I would handwrite on their memos, 'If you were Obama, what would you do?' (p. 350).

The thing about Wes, Delia said to me, unwrapping another package of turkey, is that he thinks he can fix anything. And if he can't fix it, he can at least do something with the pieces of what's broken.

He thinks he can fix anything. And if he can't fix it, he can at least do something with the pieces of what's broken.

As I crossed the lobby to the boardwalk, all I could think was that regardless of the performance I'd just witnessed, it didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.

it didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.

If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them.

The best solution to a problem is often unrelated to who is at fault. It is loserthink to believe otherwise.

I'm not against thinking; I'm only against thinking that thinking on its own will get you out of a hole. Shovel also needed.

Adopt different perspectives. Take advantage of the diversity represented in today's management landscape. An India-trained engineer may not view a problem the way one raised in Iowa will. Both may have the same problem-solving tool kit, but their different experiences provide valuable insights.

For an organization consisting mainly of engineers, whiteboards served as the corporate equivalent of the water cooler.

To have a good idea, stop having a bad one. The trick was to inhibit the easy, obvious, but ineffective attempts, permitting a better solution

Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable," President Obama explained to the author Michael Lewis. "Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. ... You can't be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out." Thomas Jefferson explained this to his secretary of the treasury: "What is good in this case cannot be effected. We have, therefore, only to find out what will be least bad.

You can't solve many of today's problems by straight linear thinking. It takes leaps of faith to sense the connections that are not necessarily obvious.

But one of the things I was proudest of with Deep Space Nine is that I began to realize that it takes a great deal more courage to stay and deal with problems that don't get solved than it is to go in, meet somebody, change their lives or have them teach us something, and then zoom out to the next person.

Many people with ADHD or VAST are at the other end of this scale. They need to move and create movement as they work. They need to create physical, hand-built solutions to problems.

For every problem in a given discipline of science, there exists a species or other entity or phenomenon ideal for its solution. (Example: a kind of mollusk, Aplysia, proved ideal for exploring the cellular base of memory.) Conversely, for every species or other entity or phenomenon, there exist important problems for the solution of which it is ideally suited. (Example: bats were logical for the discovery of sonar.)

You cannot make chicken salad out of Chicken shit.

No problem can be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it." This

If one chews a problem over long enough, it becomes apparent that the jaw is aching, and what started as weighing heavy on the heart ends up a pain in the neck.

The defining factor [for success] is never resources; it's resourcefulness.

It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution.

This armchair strategist never possessed the qualities for true generalship, because he ignored practical problems.

A person who is truly genius is not measured by his capability to solve a mathematical equation but by his capacity to resolve the problematical issues by empathizing with the human emotions of the people.

People who treat the sacrosanct of the house as temple don't battle like cattle or idle time in lengthy debate and theatrical discussion, but find solution to the problem in the overall interest of the population.