“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
“Don’t Rely on Experts Doveryai, no proveryai (trust, but verify). —OLD RUSSIAN PROVERB,” — Nat Greene Proverb 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
“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
“You must unlearn what you have learned.1 —YODA, IN STAR WARS: EPISODE V—THE EMPIRE STRIKES” — 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
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. —ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHYSICIST” — 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
“One of the most dangerous—and most pervasive—mistakes when creating a problem definition is letting some assumption about the key drivers sneak in… — Nat Greene Mistakes Copy Share Image
“The last major risk to getting good facts is our own prejudices. While we may not always test a solution based on… — Nat Greene Bias Copy Share Image
“A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.1 —CHARLES KETTERING, AMERICAN ENGINEER, HOLDER OF 186 PATENTS, INVENTOR OF THE ELECTRICAL STARTING MOTOR, LEADED… — Nat Greene Inventor Copy Share Image
“There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. —HIPPOCRATES, ANCIENT GREEK FOUNDER OF THE… — Nat Greene Ancient greek Copy Share Image
“how do you utilize experts properly? The first rule is stop asking them to solve your problem. Don’t ask them, “what’s causing… — Nat Greene Experts Copy Share Image
“When you’ve received your bachelor’s degree, you think you know everything. Once you get your master’s, you realize you don’t know anything.… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“To dig into the fundamentals, you’ll need to learn both the particulars of that system, and some of the science behind it.… — 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“every unsolved problem is bottlenecked by not understanding the root cause at a fundamental level, and every single one needs some great… — Nat Greene Problem solvers Copy Share Image
“Truly great problem-solvers powerfully communicate the value of the problem-solving process and difficulty of the problem once the solution is found.” — Nat Greene Communication Copy Share Image
“Don’t “solve” your problem at a high level where you throw lots of money at it to make it go away: Stay… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Choose wisely, for the true grail will bring you life; the false grail will take it from you.1 —THE GRAIL KNIGHT, IN… — Nat Greene Choose wisely Copy Share Image
“In my own experience I have found that most problem-solving methods promote guessing at some point in the process, but that it… — Nat Greene Copy Share Image
“Clear your mind of prejudices and assumptions, and look to define the problem as something you can objectively measure to determine whether… — Nat Greene Clear your mind Copy Share Image
