Sounds odd - but sometimes the problem is the solution.

Let’s start with a hard truth. In business and in life, we spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to fix things. We (men in particular) can’t help ourselves. The people. The systems. The coffee machine. Our mother-in-law’s opinions. But brace yourself. Sometimes the very thing causing the chaos, the friction, the existential threat, might actually be the answer we’re looking for.

This came to me when I was cracking some eggs for brekkie yesterday morning. If you enjoy cooking, you’ll know that the best way to get eggshell fragments (the problem) out of the bowl, is to use, you guessed it, an eggshell.

And then there’s that nightmare moment when you destroy a whiteboard by accidentally writing your moment of genius with a permanent marker. The problem - the ink. The solution. Write over the ink with a whiteboard marker i.e. ink.

25 years ago, when I was working at Brand Genetics, a leading innovation consultancy in the UK, I was fortunate enough to be trained in a body of work called Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). That’s right, a system (left brain) to enable creativity (right brain). Before doing any idea generation, that temptation we all have the moment we have a problem to solve, we were forced into the discipline and rigour required to get to a clear articulation of the problem. Problem identification is, in itself, a real skill. In effect, we might call this ‘a problem well stated is a problem half solved’. True.

But SIT then took us to the apparently absurd premise that the problem may in fact be the solution.

That the path to brilliance is often paved with absurdity. Or as Albert Einstein once said, ‘If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it’. Don’t you just want more Alberts on your team!

It’s a bit like realising that the colleague who double-books every meeting room and once accidentally deleted the entire shared drive, is also the only person who understands how to re-boot the printer. They are both the problem and the solution.

This principle plays out across the business landscape more than we care to admit.

Take bureaucracy. The classic villain in every innovation workshop. ‘Too slow, too rigid, too many forms’, we cry. But hang on. Bureaucracy is also what stops Dave from Finance buying himself a drone ‘for surveillance purposes’ on the company credit card. It's the thing that makes sure we don’t all start doing our own thing and calling it a strategy. Annoying? Yes. Necessary? Also, yes.

Or how about conflict? We fear it, so we choose to avoid it. But conflict, in the right dosage, is rocket fuel. It’s how we get innovation, fresh thinking, real conversations. Without conflict, without healthy tension & abrasion, you’ll rarely optimise your thinking or find the best solutions. Remember - negotiate the matter really hard, never the person.

Even failure, that most loathed of business outcomes, is often exactly what’s required. In fact, it’s a pre-requisite for high performance. Treading the path of most resistance is the path to realising our potential, so by definition, you will fall over from time to time. Is this failure? I’m not so sure. It’s the learning and coaching moment, not the hyper-critical one.

Silicon Valley made an entire motivational industry out of failure. ‘Fail fast’ was the meme. Sometimes the failed product shows you what the customer actually wants. Sometimes the presentation that bombed becomes the story you tell onstage at your next keynote. With a clicker. And dramatic lighting.

Then there’s the deeply human problem that I hear from my coaching clients on a regular basis - imposter syndrome. You think you’re the only one feeling it. You assume that it’s proof you’re not good enough. But what if it’s actually proof that you care? That you’re stretching? That you’re humble enough to question yourself, which, frankly, puts you ahead of that guy in Sales who refers to himself as a thought leader during lunch breaks.

And let us not forget the overthinker, something I have been labelled by friends in the past. ‘Readie, the problem with you is that you think too much’. Of course, my immediate response was always ‘Perhaps you don’t think enough’. Smart arse. But I couldn’t help myself.

Back to the point. The over-thinker will always double-check, always play devil’s advocate. You see them as a real buzzkill in a brainstorm. But you know what? They’re probably the one who saves the company from launching a new product with a name that means ‘accidentally flatulent’ in Spanish.

Sometimes the friction, the frustration, the flaw, is what creates the breakthrough. The loud team member draws out the silent genius. The annoying customer exposes the product flaw you never saw. Even that ridiculous deadline. It might be the only thing forcing the team to decide something before retirement.

In the end, we’re all navigating a strange system of contradictions. Problems that are also solutions. People who are both irritating and essential. Like that spider in the office bathroom that scares everyone, but also eats the flies.

So, next time something or someone goes wrong, before launching into fix-it mode, take a breath. Really understand what the problem to hand is. Look closer. Sit comfortably with the apparent absurdity that oftentimes, if you stare at a problem with sufficient intensity, the answer will reveal itself. (Isn’t this what an insight is? The lightbulb moment is in our sight).

And then remember that time when you last whisked some eggs for brekkie.

Mike