In our last lesson, we learned the seven steps. So let's review those really quickly problem identification, reframe, brainstorm, Choose three advantages disadvantages, prepare, recommend an engage feedback. We talked about problem ID and hopefully you had a chance to do that yourself and now you've got a really good picture of what the problem is. Is that you'd like to solve. Have you ever tried to lose weight and get in shape, maybe for health reasons? Or you just want to look better and the latest fashion I have and I always ask myself, should I join a gym, a fitness club? Again, you know, spend a fortune watching the monthly fee go up in my bank account statement. Maybe I get a personal trainer, you know someone told me one time if I paid more for my gym, I would go more so I did I didn't go. Then my doctor suggested that I eat less. He said people in your age group don't need as much food as they did growing up my. Well, that's how helpful depressing, actually. I could spend a lot of time brainstorming all the possible diet solutions and then not sticking to any of them. So I decided to start at problem ID who, what, when, where, why, how, and my role in this lesson. We're going to take that problem statement and turn it into a goal. And then that goal will formulate a question. That will launch you into a productive brainstorming activity. You learn how to do this individually, which sometimes goes faster, and then as a group. So when we come up with a reframed goal with a group, we need to make sure that everybody agrees with that goal. In this could be one of the most critical steps that we take. In fact, when we problem solve, this is the question or the step that we skip. And this is why the problems come up over and over again. If you get everybody on the same page, you're going to have a lot better opportunity in brainstorming to come up with a solution that works for everyone. All right, let's take a look at some of my examples here. So the first goal oriented question that I came up with was around my problem of I'm so busy I don't have time to eat and then I choose food that is quick and convenient. That's unhealthy, so notice I could have gone a lot of different directions on what the problem is there I could have gone with. I don't have enough time to go to the gym or I don't have enough money to go to the gym or enough money for a a trainer. Instead I went with what I knew and that was that I wasn't eating right, so that's what the problem ended up being when I did problem ID. So now what would the golby and again, this is just me right? It doesn't involve anyone else. I will eat healthy food and still have time to meet my commitments. So that's what I ended up with is my goal. So what you do then is put it in the form of a question that will tee up brainstorming. So this question that I came up with is what strategies can I implement to ensure that I eat healthy and still have time to meet my important commitments. Alright, so let's take a look at my goal on the room set up,so the problem ends up being that people don't understand how the room needs to be setup correctly. So the goal then, that the entire group would need to agree with is the entire internal and external setup team is clear on set up and can implement without changing it at the last minute. So that's the goal. So the question to tee up brainstorming would be what communication processes and procedures need to be in place to ensure that the room setup is correct every time. All right, here's another example for you. Here's another challenge I had. I had a cubicle mate in one of the places that I worked who was really loud, and every time I was on the phone with a client she was just laughing and really loud. And at first I thought you know, maybe this problem was just me, but I talked with a colleague and they said you know what? It's a problem for us to,this is a noisy office, so here's the problem. My cubicle worker talks and laughs loud. Which is distracting when I'm trying to work, and often is a problem when I'm talking on the phone. Turns out others have the same issue. So I got a group of people together in the office and I said what could be our goal and we all decided that the goal was,I want us to be able to work comfortably without distracting each other an maintain a good working relationship which was really important. So the question that tied up our brainstorming was this. What strategies can we implement to ensure that we can work effectively in harmoniously? So you're probably noticing a little pattern here with the question is what strategies I mean? You could start your question off with what things can we do? Or how would it help if as long as it's teeing up the question that really needs to be answered now, why is this so important? What if on that last one I had as my goal? What can I say to her to get her to shut up? [LAUGH] I actually did use that. I tried that on my own and I didn't come up with anything that would be appropriate. So it really forces you to narrow it down to you know what is the real problem and what are some things we can do to solve it. We take it from being a problem to an opportunity to make things better, and that's why we call it reframe. Reframe it into a goal oriented question. All right, it's your turn to apply this to your challenge or problem if it's an individual challenge, go ahead and work through that yourself. Right now an if it involves others then I suggest you take it of- line and have this conversation with everyone. So I hope that this was helpful with problem identification and reframe in our next session we will talk about brain storming. See you then.
