How to Turn Perplexing Small Business Problem Into a Manageable, Achievable, Bonafide Success

Just what is a problem? A dictionary defines the word problem as:

A question raised or to be raised for inquiry, consideration, discussion, decision or solution ... an unsettled matter demanding solution or decision and requiring usually consider able thought or skill for its proper solution or decision ...a perplexing or puzzling question.

Why is this definition hard to understand?

Many of my business management students have difficulty in understanding this. They don't grasp the point that a problem is always best expressed in terms of questions. "Any problem is open to question." I ask them, as I ask you, to state some of their principal problems. Here are some of the answers I have received

- The main problems we feel we will be facing in the next three years are: the economy, financing expansion, maintaining a competitive edge, and the recruiting of qualified productive employees.
- Cash flow
- Poor cash flow
- Slowing of the economy
- Encouraging the public into the store
- Employee reluctance to change
- Employee motivation
- Competition
- Development of personnel suitable to our type of business.

Show me the question

None of these statements gives us a clue about what to do to improve any undesirable situation that may exist. Not one statement is expressed as a question. All the statements leave us completely up in the air about what to do about the problems that the economy, poor cash flow, competition, etc. might be causing. Clues to management action are created when the manager asks himself what he can do in response to a question that is perplexing him. He reviews the situation, asks himself what's what, what he wants to change, etc., and then he has something to work on.

For example, one manager simply said, "encouraging the public into the store." What was the perplexing question? It might be "What steps must I take to increase the flow of traffic in my store from an average of 100 persons per day to an average of 200 persons per day?" This gives him at least something to work on. The manager who described the economy as a problem was right, I'm sure, but his description of the problem leaves him nothing to work with. He needs to ask what it is that the economy is doing to him that he can work on. He needs to break down his situation and circumstances and ask how can I deal with this or that circumstance so that I can achieve what I want to achieve in spite of the difficulties? What he will get will not usually be simple questions, but perplexing questions. That's what problems are. If he doesn't think up the questions how will he ever get the answers? To tackle your problems, first put them in the form of specific, precise questions.

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