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You might be wondering why two lawyers would choose to give a presentation on problem solving. We had an opportunity to speak about a wide variety of legal topics – Insolvency, preference claims, PPSA. But it was problem solving that really caught our eye. When we sat back and thought about it, problem solving is something that we do all day, every day. We’ve been doing it our entire professional careers (a total of over 50 combined years of practise) for some fantastic clients in a wide variety of industries. We have always had the mindset that there is a better way of doing things. And guess what? There is.

So let’s have a look at this wondrous thing called problem solving. Today we are going to discuss why problem solving is so important, especially in the context of our increasingly busy lives. We will look at problem solving in the context of the brain and the imagination, and how this leads to creative problem solving. We will go through our 5 tips for a problem solving sequence, and how this has been used in some unique real world solutions. We’ll give you a practical example of how we do it at Ledlin Lawyers, and we’ll finish off by setting you all a challenge!

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In a study done by the World Economic Forum, Complex Problem Solving was listed as the number one skill people would need in 2015. If we look at some of the other skills listed for 2015 you will see that Creativity comes in at Number 10. Active Listening, Negotiation and Critical Thinking all make an appearance in the 2015 list. If we then look at what makes the list for 2020, the only skill that remains in the same place (at the top of the list) is, you guessed it, Complex Problem Solving. Notice also that in 2020 both Critical Thinking and Creativity have moved up to the top of the list. Emotional Intelligence now makes an appearance on the list for the first time.

As new technology is developed we are faced with a new set of problems and the requirement to come up with new

ways of working.

The World Economic Forum predicts that in just 10 years, artificial intelligence machines will form part of a Company's

Board. For some Companies, that would be a welcome change.

Fortunately, there will always be a need for human involvement, even if it is just to plug the AI machine in.

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Who do we ask if we want to know the answer to something? Most people’s first stop is to search Google.

If we were to type “Problem Solving” into Google, the search engine would return over 100 million results in under one

second.

We believe it is possible to turn problem solving into a practical skill by following a defined process, however, before we

start, we need to set the context.

If we stand back and examine our busy lives, we find that life is a constant juggling of distractions. There are just so

many things fighting for our attention. Do any of these sound familiar?

Emails, texts, Facebook, YouTube, work, family, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Tinder, news sites, The Bachelor, The

Bachelorette, The Kardashians, Celebrities, Pokémon Go………. the list can be endless.

Is it any wonder that we struggle to focus?

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Science shows us that there are at least 100 trillion neural connections in the brain, and potentially up to 1000 trillion neural connections. To put that into perspective, 1 trillion is 1 million millions. 1 trillion seconds is 34,000 years. It is believed that there are more than 100 trillion stars in our solar system. So we are talking big numbers. All of those neural connections are operating at once and you can see from the image here that our brains are a hive of activity. So it’s in this context in which we find ourselves trying to solve problems – trillions of neural connections fighting against constant distractions to focus long enough to solve a problem.

We have a very short video to show you which we found really interesting on how the neural pathways in the brain are formed, and the role they play in everything we do. View it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ3401XVYww

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To break it down even further, we can loosely split our brains into two.

The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for our logical side, our rational, analytical and detail oriented side.

The right hemisphere is responsible for the creative, emotional, imaginative side.

Science is showing us that if we can tap into the right side of our brain, true creative problem solving begins.

If we want to be creative problem solvers, we must learn to engage the right side of our brain.

Let’s look at an example of using the right hand side of the brain to problem solve.

When you look at this picture, what do you see?

Segments of a cut orange? A piece of nature? A nutritious snack? A piece of fruit? The colour orange?

We all see and recognise something different in this image.

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Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect, saw something different. He submitted a design for an Opera House to be built on the Harbour foreshore opposite Sydney Harbour Bridge. His design was based on the orange segments that he imagined as the sails of a building that was to eventually become listed as a World Heritage site.

Today the Sydney Opera House is an iconic building and has become intrinsically linked with the modern forward

thinking country Australia has become.

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We should all be thankful that Utzon was Danish and not French… otherwise we may have ended up having an Opera

House that looks like this!

Utzon shows that if we want to properly solve problems we need to engage the imagination. Let’s try and use our

imagination to visualise the distinction between the two sides of our brain.

Imagine a straight road from A to B. Imagine you are in the outback where the roads can be dead straight with a barren

landscape on either side. Imagine that scene in black and white with no colour. That scene represents the logical, rational

left hand side of the brain. There is one single perspective where everything else is stripped away. It is in fact the most

direct route from A to B.

Imagine now a modern freeway with flyovers and underpasses. Imagine this in colour where there are many different

roads all leading to different places, where things are connected, where patterns are formed. There are signposts offering

many different alternatives and the user is asked “Where else can we go?”

This image represents the functioning of the right hand side of the brain. This is the way we can come up with creative

solutions.

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Let’s now take a close look at how we can turn problem solving into a practical skill.

Studies have found that a whopping 47% of our time is spend mind wandering. 70% of leaders report regularly being

unable to be attentive in meetings.

And just 2% of people regularly make time to enhance personal productivity.

We’ve already discussed one of the main reasons for this; because our brains are bombarded with information and

distractions at every turn. But how do we get past this?

If we think of our mind as a snow globe, we need to imitate the snowflakes settling on the ground, as we learn to actively

focus our mind.

An effective way to do this is through mindfulness.

We have all been told to be “in the present.”

Our thoughts are usually occupied by re-living the past (“replaying the tape”) or focused on the future with what may or

may not happen.

The one thing that is truly in the present is our body.

If we focus on one part of the body, we can truly be “in the present.”

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Mindfulness is a type of meditation used to relax and maintain an inner focus on the present. Studies show it improves

mood, concentration, memory, productivity, reduces stress and anxiety. Pretty powerful stuff.

Google run an internal training course called “Search Inside Yourself”. It is the most popular course that it runs and

explores mindfulness in some depth. Many of the world’s leading organisations, non-for profits, statutory bodies and

governments have undertaken mindfulness courses.

You can find out more about Search Inside Yourself by following this link: https://siyli.org/

If you have time now, you may wish to try a quick breathing exercise which, if practised regularly, will help slow down

your frantic brain and to reach that right hand side where your creative wellspring resides.

Try this exercise and experience the effects for yourself: https://www.livingwell.org.au/mindfulness-exercises-3/5-

breathing-mindfulness/

This only needs to take 1 – 2 minutes at a time. If you can do this throughout the day, you will be surprised at the

difference it can make.

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The first of our 5 steps is Mindfulness. The next step is Defining the Problem you are trying to solve. Take the time to

reflect on the problem and rephrase it. The first question we always ask our Clients is, “What is it that you are trying to

achieve” We repeat this back to them, putting it in our own words. We ask, “Have I got this right?

This step can sometimes take a while, and that’s ok as we need to accurately define the problem.

When looking at any problem to be solved, it is important to put things into perspective. By this we mean to look at the

problem from many different viewpoints and consider the bigger picture.

Imagine a baby elephant on its own. Perhaps the problem is that the baby elephant is lost and cannot find the herd. It

may be that the baby elephant is at the back of the herd and is struggling to keep up. Or maybe it is in the middle of the

herd and is in danger of being trampled.

By considering the big picture, by putting things into perspective, we are able to consider many different possibilities and

help uncover exactly what the problem is and what ramifications the solution might have on the bigger picture.

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Imagine yourself in the bigger picture. How would you react if you were in that person’s shoes? Empathise. Engage in

emotional intelligence. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and you will often come up with a solution that is win-win.

When Jonas Salk was asked how he invented the vaccine for polio he replied “I tried to imagine myself as a cancer cell

and tried to sense what it would be like”.

Try not to be judgemental, encourage others to contribute and never say “that will never work” or “we tried that before

and it didn’t work”. The aim is to encourage input and to try and get the best from people. Being judgemental and critical

of others will not help solve the problem.

Cast your mind back to the baby elephant. Imagine the problem is that our baby elephant is in the middle of the pack.

Ask yourself, why is he there? How did he get there? What is he doing in the middle? Closely examine the problem. Ask

questions.

Develop a genuine sense of curiosity. Be rigorous and inquisitive. Remember, the dumbest question is the one you

don’t ask.

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It sounds easy to say, but the truth is, we do not think enough. Our world is full of short, sharp, soundbites and we are

encouraged to think in shorthand. We are losing the ability to think carefully about most things and justify this lack of

focus by saying we do not have enough time. We cannot continue to take things on face value. So take the time to:-

Consider

Reflect

Evaluate

Deliberate

Investigate

Think

Thinking is not daydreaming, thinking is using your brain and your cognitive facilities to help you create order out of

chaos and to help you form a measured view of whatever the issues are that you are thinking about. Thinking should

never be summarily dismissed, it should be encouraged as it will help us in our problem solving efforts.

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Edward De Bono is best known for his use of the term “lateral thinking”. This concept is often expressed as “thinking

outside the square or the box”, or, if you like, thinking differently. An example of lateral thinking is given by Dr De Bono

when he was asked by Ford motor company in the UK to come up with a way of selling more cars.

De Bono then carried out a study of car parks near railway stations and public transport hubs. He found that car parking

in these areas was at a premium and those carparks were often full well before peak hour. Car spaces in those carparks

were highly sought after and highly valued by commuters.

De Bono then reported back to Ford with the results of his study. He advised would that if they wanted to sell more cars

they should buy up all of these carparks and then a sign at the front that said “This Car Park Is Only for the Use of Ford

Cars”.

De Bono had identified what is known as an integrated value. If you purchased a motor car from Ford you would not only

get sophisticated machinery but also a value that you would not find anywhere else. An integrated value that a purchaser

would see as worth paying money for.

Unfortunately Ford did not purchase carparks as suggested however a number of prestige motorcars now offer additional

benefits including roadside services, free loan cars when servicing is being carried out, dining benefits and free car

parking in certain areas (for example, the Sydney Opera House car park.

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VanMoof is a Dutch company who design electronic bikes. Unfortunately, they found that a large number of Customers

were returning the bikes due to damage that was occurring during shipping.

You’d think that the solution to this problem would be to change delivery Companies. They tried larger Companies, and

boutique ones too. Same problem. They considered changing the packaging, but this would have cost far more.

So they decided to print an image of a flat screen TV on the side of their boxes, giving a visual signal that the contents

were fragile and needed to be handled with care. Shipping damages dropped by 70-80% after this.

This is a neat, elegant and clever remedy to a very expensive problem.

Another example comes from American furniture store West Elm. They wanted to sell more furniture, but didn’t want to

risk opening any more stores. Instead, they decided to open a chain of boutique hotels fitted with West Elm furniture.

Guests could download an App on check in and purchase any of the furnishings through the App.

It gave customers the opportunity to see the product, feel it, test it, live with it, and experience it. All of the things people

want to do when they are buying furniture.

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In the legal world, we are approaching things differently too by developing specialist problem solving courts. In the UK,

46% of mothers were more likely to stop misusing substances at the end of the proceedings in a problem solving court,

as opposed to 30% in ordinary court proceedings.

Every Monday we start out working week with what we call our “Workflow Meeting”. This meeting usually takes 1 hour

and starts with 1 minute of mindfulness to settle our minds to enable us to think clearly. We then go through all of the

matters that we have coming up that week. This is a designated time to discuss any problems that people in the firm or

clients have that need to be addressed and solved.

Every other day of the week we start our day by engaging in the Rockefeller habits. We start first up in the morning with

our group Huddle in front of our communal whiteboard. We list the 5 most important things that each person needs to

get through on that particular day. This helps us effectively prioritise, as our time is a premium. By writing on the

communal whiteboard we all know what is expected of us and each member of the firm. It gives every one of us a

perspective of what is happening and makes each of us feel part of the culture of the firm. When an item has been done

it is crossed off the list, giving people a sense of accomplishment.

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If we continue to use the same old thinking we must expect to get the same old results.

If we keep doing things the same old way we will never know if there is a better way.

The more we harness our untapped potential residing in our brains the more we will be able to cope with whatever life

throws at us.

Our challenge to Delegates is to submit your most difficult problem to us through the dedicated page on our website at

https://www.ledlinlawyers.com.au/aicm-challenge/.

Tell us your problem, we will respond with tips and pick one at random to help solve at no cost to you.

You have nothing to lose and may get your most difficult legal problem solved at no charge! We will have the satisfaction

of knowing we helped someone solve an issue. It’s win-win!

We will leave the challenge open until 6pm on Thursday 27 October 2016.

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More Resources can be found on our website www.ledlinlawyers.com.au/resources under Items of General Interest.

If you are one of the 2% of people who do nothing to improve their own productivity then now is your chance. You have

nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain.