Quotes About Problem-solving

That there was nothing so wrong in the world that we couldn't sort it out by the end of a single half-hour episode (or maybe a two-parter, if it was something really serious).

There was no downtime between calls, because there were always several hundred morons in the call queue, all of them willing to wait on hold for hours to have a tech rep hold their hand and fix their problem. Why bother looking up the solution online? Why try to figure the problem out on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you?

Why bother looking up the solution online? Why try to figure the problem out on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you?

Part One describes how McKinsey thinks about business problems. It shows what it means to be fact-based, structured, and hypothesis-driven.

If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.

If your boss steps into your office and says, "We have a little problem and we want you to head up a team to solve it," then the lesson for you is a bit more complicated. Don't blithely accept the assignment and say, "Sure, boss." If you do, you could be setting yourself up for a fall.

The McKinsey problem-solving process begins with research. Before a team can construct an initial hypothesis, before it can disaggregate a problem into its components and uncover the key drivers, it has to have information.

The moral of this story is that an initial hypothesis is not a prerequisite for successful problem solving. Having one will help organize and forward your thinking, but if you can't come up with one, don't despair. Any McKinsey-ite will tell you that no business problem is immune to the power of fact-based analysis. Put together enough facts, combine them with some creative thinking, and you will come up with a solution.

LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE Every now and then, take a mental step back from whatever you're doing. Ask yourself some basic questions: How does what you're doing solve the problem? How does it advance your thinking? Is it the most important thing you could be doing right now? If it's not helping, why are you doing it?

The skill set of a CEO (ability to see the big picture, to deal with a wide range of problems, to plan for contingencies, etc.)

Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.

[A mathematician is a] scientist who can figure out anything except such simple things as squaring the circle and trisecting an angle.

Occupying my mind with complex problems has been my best and most powerful and most reliable defense against my mental illness.

If I can learn how to rely on my own strength, I can see the answers to my problems usually lie right there, within the problem itself.

As a kid, I had my head under the hood of a car, either an old Ford or a Chevrolet, just learning about it so if anything happened, I could repair it.

I imagined there would be a way to crack the diffraction barrier. But of course I didn't know exactly how it would work, but I had a gut feeling that there must be something, and so I tried to think about it, to be creative.

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson dubbed this sense of being free to speak your mind "psychological safety." It's hard to overstate its value. Psychological safety boosts morale, fosters improvements, and ensures that, in Andrew Wolstenholme's words, "bad news travels fast"—so problems can be tackled quickly.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.

If you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

When Henry and I had had to work out a really sticky problem together, neither of us was allowed to mention it. No bursting out with 'Say, I've got an idea! What do you think of this? . . .' It was not allowed, because the thing had not matured enough, and putting forth an idea that was not worked out in detail wasted the other's time and kept him from letting it 'ripen'.

Although the fight-or-flight response may have helped primitive man survive, it is deadly to the diver. Underwater problems have to be solved underwater.

If there are obstacles, the shortest line between two points may be the crooked line.

Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.