“Don’t ask SMEs to make business decisions for you without stepping back and considering a possible conflict of interest.” — Nat Greene Business Copy Share Image
“People are socialized not to “challenge” what respected people believe.” — Nat Greene Respect Copy Share Image
“I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.1 —SHERLOCK HOLMES, IN SIGN OF THE FOUR” — Nat Greene Sherlock Copy Share Image
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. —LEONARDO DA VINCI, 15TH-CENTURY PAINTER AND INVENTOR” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Noticing and eliminating distractions will enable you to stay on target when you’re facing down your next complex problem.” — Nat Greene Distractions Copy Share Image
“most people believe they’re making fact-based decisions, when they are, in fact, making opinion-based ones.” — Nat Greene Decision making Copy Share Image
“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. —HENRY FORD, AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Keep in mind that the method you choose to guide you is of little use without strong problem-solving behaviors.” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“problem-solving that relies on pattern-finding is of no use at all. If we look at the Challenger space shuttle catastrophe, there weren’t… — Nat Greene Patterns Copy Share Image
“Truly solving the problem involves understanding what’s wrong and why it happened, through investigation and understanding—not by spending days or weeks testing… — Nat Greene Learning Copy Share Image
“Great problem solvers develop the questions that they want to answer before they go about collecting information and data, rather than depending… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“When you don’t believe in a simple solution to a hard problem, you instead believe in a complex solution. These complex solutions… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“learning how things work at a basic level so you can build up the understanding you need to truly solve the problem.… — Nat Greene Education Copy Share Image
“ask thought-provoking questions that guide you to collect information and look for very specific patterns, rather than shotgunning and looking at everything… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“our job is to efficiently find the root cause. So instead of expanding each variable, we want to see if we can… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“If you get from someone a list of 10 “potential” root causes, they don’t know what’s happening. If you’ve come up with… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“A great problem-solver won’t attempt to learn everything: To do so will waste tremendous time without making progress. Spending a few weeks… — Nat Greene Education Copy Share Image
“So often, I see people bury themselves in mounds of data coming off their computers, hoping that some stream or other will… — Nat Greene Analysis Copy Share Image
“Embrace your ignorance. Most people try to solve problems using the knowledge they already have about a process, but it’s what you… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“most methods disguise the guessing stage in some fancy language, such as “determine possible root causes.” This is making a list of… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Successfully solving hard problems requires knowing what problem you’re solving. You should put great care into defining the problem in an accurate… — Nat Greene Problem solving Copy Share Image
“Life gets painful both at work and at home when you’re not making decisions with facts. When all you hear are people’s… — Nat Greene Life Copy Share Image
“There are even a lot of formal problem-solving methods that actively encourage expanding possibilities when problem-solving. As I’ve said before, expansive thinking… — Nat Greene New things Copy Share Image
“As some of my Canadian friends have told me: “There is no such thing as bad weather; just the wrong clothes.” This… — Nat Greene Bad weather Copy Share Image
“If you believe that success is inevitable, you’re less likely to work your tail off in order to achieve it. Hard problems… — Nat Greene Faith Copy Share Image
“Variable Analysis 1. Define the problem. a. What problem are you trying to solve? b. Determine the primary variable • Closely inspect… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. —ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHYSICIST” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“If you don’t believe in a simple solution, you are very unlikely to find it, whether it is there or not.” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Don’t confuse believing in a simple solution with hoping that a simple guess will work.” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“You must unlearn what you have learned.1 —YODA, IN STAR WARS: EPISODE V—THE EMPIRE STRIKES” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Great problem-solvers resist the temptation to guess at every stage of the process. Guessing is a tough habit to break, so get… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Don’t Rely on Experts Doveryai, no proveryai (trust, but verify). —OLD RUSSIAN PROVERB,” — Nat Greene Proverb Copy Share Image
“whenever you read a method step such as “determine possible root causes,” this is a red flag for your problem-solving method.” — Nat Greene Problem solving Copy Share Image
“Great problem-solvers also have opinions; what makes them different is that they recognize them for what they are and then set them… — Nat Greene Opinions Copy Share Image
“We need to understand what variables most directly control our primary variable by understanding the science behind how the system works.” — Nat Greene Science Copy Share Image
“To solve truly hard problems, you’ll need to use a method that doesn’t involve guessing in any step.” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Brainstorming might be useful in situations where creativity is required. However, solving hard problems is not one of these.” — Nat Greene Brainstorming Copy Share Image
“Defining the acceptable and unacceptable ranges for this variable means that the problem definition is objective and immune to opinion.” — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Staying on target means understanding and measuring only what you need to in order to drill to the root cause and find… — Nat Greene Goal Copy Share Image
“Always check that you are operating at the right level and get the facts to confirm that, even when you are not… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
