Episode 9: Why is work “problem solving” (and nothing else) ?

I use the term “problem solving” a lot, as a synonym for "work", and it needs some explanation. First of all, it’s NOT about interpersonal problems It is: CONTENT problems, that prevent you from making progress and that require you to come up with a solution to make progress again It’s not negative ! on the contrary, it’s positive ! It’s what you need in the first place to make progress ! Ignoring problems is ignoring opportunities to make progress. Or worse, or more dangerous, consider that all new problems are the same as old problems and that therefore can be solved with old knowledge … But then, why talk about problem solving when you can just talk about “performing work” ? Well that would be oversimplifying things There is much more to “just doing my job” Your daily job, even in very operational type of jobs, is never the same The context always changes, the people you interact with can have different reactions,  … Example: the receptionist at the hotel ... Suppose we don’t create knowledge while performing work, then either work would be 100% repetitive which is impossible or we would never be able to make any kind of progress. If you really believe that you don’t create new knowledge while doing your job: They your job can immediately be replaced by a computer Or you are permanently stuck in your job, making no progress at all anymore So … we don’t just “perform work” … “we solve problems in order to be able to perform our work”. In fact, this makes work interesting, you don’t just say “I sell computers” … you can go deeper into what makes that job so specific ? What problems you encounter and what specific ideas you have or are working on to solve them ... On a broader level, and when thinking about “how to make more progress” … which is the ultimate question at the end of the day … we can ask ourselves many very interesting questions: What kinds of problems should be solved and what kinds should not ? How to decide what problems should be solved ? Who should decide what problems to solve? Where should problems be solved? Who should solve the problems? How to optimally create knowledge and foster behaviour in order to solve those problems? How should cooperation look when solving problems? What processes and drivers promote optimum problem solving ? … The point being: if we look at work as “just performing the work I am responsible for performing” … we neglect all of these interesting questions … we neglect all of the optimisation potential that is opened up through these questions. We basically rely on oversimplified rules for how to organise work or “who should do what and report to whom”. I hope to get into all of these specific questions in future episodes, it will take us some time because they open a variety of different and new aspects such as the theory of knowledge creation, and principles behind behaviour change Hope you hang on to discover and relate to it!