Problem Solving Is More Than Finding an Answer

We tend to recognize problem solving by its outcome. Something was wrong, somebody figured out what to do, and the problem went away.

That makes the solution the most visible part of the process. It is rarely the whole process.

Before you can solve a problem, you have to make sense of what is happening. You need to decide which information matters, work out what could be causing the problem, consider what might change it, and eventually choose what to do. If your solution does not work, you need to learn something from that too.

Problem solving is the ability to understand a problem well enough to respond to it and adjust your response as you learn more.

Technically, problem solving is not a single executive function. I include it in my executive function framework because it depends on several executive functions working together, and because that combined capacity becomes increasingly important when you are responsible for making decisions that affect other people.

The problem you see gives you somewhere to start

Suppose an important project is behind schedule.

The obvious problem is the delay. You can see it, measure it, and probably feel some pressure to do something about it.

But “the project is late” describes what is happening. It does not necessarily tell you why.

Perhaps the timeline was unrealistic. The scope may have changed. A decision could be holding up several pieces of work. There may genuinely be a performance problem somewhere on the team.

Until you know enough to distinguish among those possibilities, it is difficult to know whether you should change the deadline, reduce the scope, make a decision, redistribute work, or do something else entirely.

This is one of the basic demands of problem solving: turning a situation into a problem you understand well enough to work on.

That does not require exhaustive investigation. Familiar problems are often recognizable quickly, particularly when experience has given you useful patterns to draw from. If you have seen the same issue twenty times, you may understand what you are looking at almost immediately.

Experience becomes less helpful when familiarity causes you to stop looking before you have enough information.

The question is not whether your first explanation should be trusted or distrusted. It is whether you understand the situation well enough for the response you are about to make.

Several executive functions are doing the work

Problem solving looks like one ability from the outside. Cognitively, quite a lot can be happening underneath it.

Working memory helps keep relevant information available while you think about how the pieces fit together. Planning and prioritization help you sort what matters and determine what needs attention first. Response inhibition gives you room to consider the situation before acting.

When new information changes your understanding, cognitive flexibility helps you revise it. Metacognition helps you notice your own thinking, including assumptions that may be shaping how you interpret the problem.

The particular mix changes with the situation. A familiar operational problem may place relatively little demand on you. An unfamiliar problem involving incomplete information and several competing options may require much more coordination.

This is why I treat problem solving differently from the other capacities in my framework. It gives us a useful way to see executive functions working together in service of an outcome.

A difficulty with problem solving therefore does not automatically mean someone is “bad at solving problems.” The friction may occur somewhere within the process.

If a person keeps acting before they have enough information, slowing the process may matter. If they understand the problem but cannot decide among possible responses, the difficulty is somewhere else. Looking more closely at where the process gets stuck gives us more useful information than evaluating the final outcome alone.

Solving the symptom can still leave the problem

One reason problem solving requires more than generating answers is that a reasonable solution can work without resolving what produced the problem.

If customer complaints suddenly increase, adding another person to customer support may be completely appropriate. Customers need help now, and the existing team may genuinely need more capacity.

But suppose most of the complaints concern the same confusing feature.

More support allows the company to respond to the complaints faster. It does not reduce the number of customers encountering the problem.

That does not make the first response wrong. It means the first response solved one part of what was happening.

Complex problems often contain more than one level like this. There may be something that requires attention immediately and something underneath it that determines whether the same situation keeps returning.

Good problem solving does not require searching endlessly for a deeper explanation. Sometimes the obvious problem really is the problem. What matters is remaining curious when the same difficulty keeps returning despite apparently reasonable solutions.

Repeated problems are information.

The solution gives you more information

Choosing what to do does not finish the thinking.

Once you act, something happens.

The solution works. It partly works. Nothing changes. Something unexpected gets worse. The original problem disappears and another one becomes visible.

Whatever happens next gives you information about your original understanding.

This is an easily overlooked part of problem solving because we often evaluate a decision as though the only useful categories are right and wrong. In reality, many decisions are made with incomplete information. A sensible response can produce an unexpected result without having been foolish at the time it was made.

The important question becomes what you do with what you now know.

If the evidence changes, the working understanding of the problem may need to change with it. That can mean modifying the solution, abandoning it, or recognizing that the problem itself was different from what you initially thought.

Problem solving therefore contains a feedback loop. You understand enough to act, then use the result of that action to improve your understanding.

Why problem solving belongs in my framework

Problem solving sits somewhat differently from the other areas I assess.

Working memory, sustained attention, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and the other executive functions describe particular capacities involved in directing thought and behavior. Problem solving draws several of those capacities together around a question that needs an answer.

I include it because that coordination matters in real life, and particularly in leadership.

As responsibility grows, problems tend to arrive with more variables, more consequences, and more people affected by what happens next. There may be no obvious answer available. Sometimes there is not even immediate agreement about what the problem is.

The person responsible still has to make sense of the situation and decide what happens next.

That is the skill I am interested in when I talk about problem solving.

Finding an answer is part of it. The larger capacity is being able to understand what needs solving, develop a response that fits what you know, and keep thinking when reality gives you new information.