How to Quickly Analyze Complex Business Problems
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How do you learn to solve every problem your business will face as it grows?
Trick question. You don’t.
By its nature, business requires dealing with the uncertain and the unknown.
There are skills you don’t have, complexities you haven’t considered, and even unforeseen events that you never anticipated.
So how do you find the balance between being smart, looking ahead, getting the right senior leaders on board……and acknowledging the reality that sometimes you’re up against a problem you haven’t dealt with before?
By focusing on the information you DO have available to you.
There’s a little phrase I like to use in these circumstances: The Facts I Do Know
Finding the Facts I Do Know
When most entrepreneurs are faced with a question they can’t answer, the problem isn’t coming up with potential solutions.
There are dozens of thoughts, possible courses of action, swirling around in your head.
Which one is the best path forward?
Instead of trying to find an answer right away, I like to start with one of those long, rambling conversations that the business sometimes requires. (See this article for a primer on how to make those conversations productive.)
At some point in the discussion, I start to pick up on a few a-has. With time, you can sift out the actual facts from the conjectures and the concerns.
Summarize those facts and see where you end up.
Here’s a recent client example:
The question at hand: does the team need to hire a sales leader?
The answer wasn’t readily apparent. But through discussion, here are some facts that became clear:
- Sales is an issue in this organization.
- Revenue needs to increase by a certain dollar amount to meet the company’s goals.
- Conversion rates are lower than anticipated right now.
- The team has access to a sales leader with a good track record.
- It is not a bad idea to try this solution.
Could the team confidently say that bringing this sales leader on was a good idea? Not yet. But based on the facts laid out here, they determined that trialing the new hire was the right decision.
It didn’t guarantee that they had solved their problem. But it allowed them to take a next step with the information they currently had available.
Moving forward with incomplete information isn’t ideal. But it’s the reality of doing business, especially as you grow and get more complex.
Ultimately, the companies that act fairly quickly to try new solutions, even if they don’t work out, succeed more often than those that sit on their hands waiting for the answer to become apparent.
This kind of analysis isn’t meant to exhaust every data point. It’s meant to help you iterate, test, and iterate again. Onward and upward.
The facts you know may be incomplete. But sometimes, they have to be enough.
P.S. Can our consulting team support you in making difficult decisions about your business? Yes, we can. Contact us to find out how.
