Fall in Love With Your Problems

BY JASON GERDES

I heard a business axiom recently that caught my attention: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.”

As a communicator, I am a sucker for pithy phrases. In fact, I keep a note on my phone to write them down whenever I hear them. Occasionally, one will come along that really makes me think, because it seems to defy conventional wisdom.

This was one such phrase. Fall in love with the problem? I never have thought about doing that, because I always am trying to eliminate the problem.

I am an idea guy, and I love thinking about problems and coming up with ideas to solve them. I like to say, “I have never had an idea that I didn’t like.” But, therein lies the problem. I can fall in love with an idea and become so enamored with it that I can become presumptuous about it.

The reason there is wisdom in “fall in love with the problem” is not because we should become comfortable with our problems and not try to solve them. The thing to learn here is always to be learning and not make the potentially devastating assumption that we understand the problem or the best solution.

Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

This is the essence of what it means to fall in love with the problem. We must continue to stay in a posture of learning, where we remain curious about new ways of thinking about our problems.

If we are willing to fall in love with the problem, then we develop a mindset where we fall in love with the process of finding a better solution to the problem. Many businesses, institutions, churches, families and individuals provide solutions to problems that fundamentally have changed over time. And, therefore, their solutions no longer are relevant.

We so easily fall in love with the solutions we create. When a solution no longer solves the problem we intentionally created it for, we have a hard time adopting a new solution. However, if we can fall in love with the problem, and hold our solutions loosely, we remain in a position to continue improving our ability to solve it.