What makes some problems so difficult to solve? How can you identify which challenges deserve your immediate attention?
Every organization faces complex issues, but not all challenges are created equal. Richard Rumelt’s strategic approach helps leaders break down broad issues into manageable pieces and zero in on the core problem (what he calls “the crux”)—the most crucial challenge that needs immediate attention.
Keep reading to discover a practical framework for making meaningful progress on seemingly insurmountable issues by identifying the core problem.
The Core Problem
Rumelt contends that, to solve a complex issue, you must identify and analyze each challenge to find the core problem. All businesses will face major issues in their operations. For example, a company may create a new market with an innovative product but find that, despite high demand, they’re unable to turn a profit. Or a longstanding company might see their competitors overtaking their market share despite doing everything they can to remain competitive.
Rumelt focuses on complex, broad issues, which he says don’t have:
- Alternatives for solutions: You don’t know your options, so you can’t choose a direction based on what worked in the past.
- Reliable testing methods: You can come up with new solutions, but you can’t test them before trying them—so you don’t know what their outcome would be.
To illustrate what a broad issue might look like, imagine a pharmaceutical company that needs to develop a drug for a rare, novel disease. The disease doesn’t respond to any existing treatment (so there are no known alternatives), and the nature of the disease makes it impossible to test the drug on living subjects (so there are no options for testing). This company is facing a broad issue that will require a brand new approach.
| Viewing Broad Issues as Wicked Problems Rumelt’s description of a broad issue is similar to the concept of wicked problems, developed by design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber. Like Rumelt’s complex issues, wicked problems have no known solutions and no means of testing new solutions. However, in addition to these characteristics, they also have an unlimited number of potential solutions, create real-world consequences for every attempted solution, and give no definitive signal that they’ve been solved. As you approach your broad problem, consider viewing it as a wicked problem—think about how you’ll prioritize infinite solutions and how you’ll know when you’ve adequately solved the problem. Additionally, think about how each solution you attempt will affect your organization and everyone your organization touches. This may help you stay focused on the most viable solutions and avoid the potential harm that may result from attempted solutions that are poorly executed or designed. |
Broad Issues Comprise Challenges
Every broad issue can be broken down into a number of smaller challenges. Rumelt explains that, in order to overcome a broad issue, you need to examine all these challenges and decide which one is the core problem (which he refers to as “the crux”).
He goes on to explain that a core problem is:
- The most impactful challenge in the broad issue—that is, if addressed successfully, it’ll have the most significant impact on your organization’s future
- Something your business is capable of solving
(Shortform note: While it may seem reductive to whittle a very large issue down to a single smaller challenge, there’s a good chance that changing just one of these small challenges will help you make major progress toward solving your issue. The Pareto principle states that, in many situations, 80% of results or consequences come from just 20% of causes. Even if the challenge you identify as the core problem seems to make up just a minor portion of the issue you’re facing, if you’ve identified it correctly, addressing it may help you solve the vast majority of your broad issue.)
For example, imagine a small restaurant struggling with the broad issue of insufficient revenue. They identify several challenges comprising this issue, including food waste from fresh ingredients going bad, an unfavorable location with limited parking, and inefficient kitchen operations leading to long wait times and customer dissatisfaction. Upon examining these challenges, they determine that reducing food waste wouldn’t make enough of a difference to solve their issue (not impactful), and that moving the location of the restaurant isn’t feasible with their current resources (not solvable).
They decide that the core of their broad issue is inefficient kitchen operations. This core problem is both highly impactful and within their power to solve. Overcoming this challenge will not only resolve their broad issue, but will also substantially improve the future of their business.
(Shortform note: To determine whether your business is capable of solving a problem, it helps to outline your organization’s capabilities. Capabilities are what your company is doing as well as what it can do. These can include strategic capabilities (those that give you an edge over your competitors), core capabilities (those that are crucial to your organization’s existence), context capabilities (those that quietly underlie your organization’s functioning), and foundational capabilities (those that don’t fit into the other three categories but are essential for the organization’s operations). Mapping out your company’s capabilities can give you a clearer idea of what types of issues you can handle, and what types should be deferred.)
Why Does Identifying the Core Problem Matter?
Rumelt explains that, when businesses attempt to tackle a broad issue without identifying and building a strategy around the core problem, they end up wasting time and resources on challenges that either don’t have a significant impact on the issue or turn out to be unsolvable. By focusing on the core problem, strategists can concentrate their efforts and resources on the most crucial aspects of their situation. This approach allows organizations to make meaningful progress on complex issues by identifying and working on the points of the issue that will lead to the best results.
| Systems Theory and Leverage Points Rumelt’s ideas may be better understood in the context of systems theory. In Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows explains that the problems we face are often the result of a defect in a system—a complex set of interconnected elements intended to fulfill a specific purpose. You can think of a business as a system consisting of people, products, and services that work together to achieve a common goal, such as creating a profit. That system is made up of smaller subsystems, and it also functions within the larger systems of society and the economy, further complexifying its operations. When you need to fix something in a system, it helps to address a specific leverage point, or a place to intervene within the system. Meadows argues that in complex systems, some leverage points have more impact than others. She presents a hierarchy of 12 leverage points, ranging from low-impact (like changing parameters) to high-impact (like changing the system’s paradigm). Focusing on high-impact leverage points as you identify your core problem can help you better differentiate between impactful versus non-impactful challenges and solvable versus non-solvable challenges, which can reduce the amount of time and resources you may waste. Consider looking at your system and seeing its elements as possible sources of the complex problem: Look at the history of the issue you’re facing and how it evolved, draw a diagram to show how every element of the issue is connected, and think about how the human factor may be contributing to the issue—other people involved may be approaching things differently and inadvertently causing problems. |
How to Identify the Core Problem
Now that we’ve explained what the core problem is and why it’s important, we’ll discuss how you can identify it. According to Rumelt, the purpose of this process is to fully explore and examine the broad issue you’re facing. If you don’t understand what challenges the broad issue comprises, you can’t identify which of those challenges is the most significant.
Once you’ve confirmed you have a broad issue, you can begin identifying all the smaller challenges that comprise it. This process consists of three steps: 1) gathering information, 2) grouping your challenges, and 3) distilling these into your core problem.
Step 1: Gather Information
To gather information about your broad issue, make a list of every aspect of that issue. That includes not only the challenges it involves, but also the potential solutions and the opportunities your solutions might lead to. Seek input from your executive team and any employees who may have insight into the broad issue. These tactics will help you avoid the tunnel vision that causes you to focus only on the first few problems that you think of.
Rumelt provides some specific tools you can use to gather information about your core problem. These include thinking about the situation from different perspectives and using comparisons.
Different Perspectives
According to Rumelt, strategists should look at the broad issue from different perspectives to reveal aspects of the issue that weren’t immediately obvious. It can also help you uncover underlying assumptions and biases you weren’t aware of, question the established way of doing things, and extend your thinking beyond current constraints and mental boundaries.
Rumelt says that, to take on a new perspective about your broad issue, you should consider the many different ways other people in different positions might view your situation. This includes stakeholders, employees at all levels, customers, outside analysts, and competitors. Any of these perspectives could provide you with a brand new insight that helps you crack your core problem.
For example, imagine a retail chain that’s struggling to maintain its customer base. Looking at the issue purely from the perspective of an executive, it may seem inexplicable. But when the business asks frontline employees for input, they may discover that outdated inventory management is causing stock issues and lost sales. This perspective adds an essential insight to the business’s understanding of their overall broad issue and helps them zero in on the core problem.
Comparisons
Rumelt also advises using comparisons to assess your core problem. He emphasizes that comparisons across industries, countries, or even seemingly unrelated fields can offer valuable insights into organizational issues. This broader scope of comparison can help identify inefficiencies, uncover hidden opportunities, and challenge long-held assumptions. By comparing situations or issues to similar cases in different contexts, strategists can recognize patterns that might not be apparent when they focus solely on their specific situation.
For example, a university with declining enrollment might compare its recruitment strategies to those of tech companies attracting top talent, inspiring new approaches to student outreach and program design.
Consider the following comparisons you could make:
- Compare your current situation to your organization’s history. How have you dealt with broad issues in the past? What tactics did you take with those broad issues? If they succeeded, why? If they failed, why?
- Compare your situation to a similar situation faced by a competitor. Someone in your field may have already faced similar broad issues; consider how they approached those issues and how successful they were in overcoming them.
- Compare your situation to an analogous situation faced by an organization in another industry. Comparisons with other industries can reveal practices or approaches that could be adapted to solve problems in your industry.
- Compare your situation to an analogous historical situation. Analogies to historical situations can provide insights into how similar issues have been addressed in the past and what outcomes resulted.
Step 2: Group the Information
Rumelt says that once you have all this information, you should group your identified challenges into related categories. For example, you may have one group of challenges related to product design, one group related to customer satisfaction, and one group related to increasing revenue. These groupings will help you identify the differences in your identified challenges, including which aspects of the organization they relate to, how important they are, and how easy they’ll be to solve. This will then give you a better understanding of the overall broad issue and prepare you for the next step: distilling.
(Shortform note: You may find the grouping stage easier if you create a visual representation of your ideas and categories. Research shows that visual explanations significantly enhance comprehension of complex topics. Consider using a tool such as affinity mapping: This method, invented by anthropologist Jiro Kawakita in the 1960s, provides a visual way for you to group your various ideas from a brainstorming session (or the gathering information stage of Rumelt’s process). Write each idea down on a sticky note and place them into the categories you’ve picked out. This will help you and your team better conceptualize the challenges and how they relate to your broad issue.)
Step 3: Distill the Information
At this stage, you’ll likely find that the list of challenges you’ve identified is far too long for you to address all of them. That’s why you’ll need to narrow your list to find the core problem. Your core problem will be impactful and difficult (but not impossible) to solve. In addition, Rumelt says, your core problem will also be urgent—something that you need to address right away.
Check each item on your list to see if they’re impactful and difficult to solve, and rank them according to urgency. If an item is missing one of the three criteria, eliminate it. This will lead you to your core problem.
(Shortform note: You may find it difficult to eliminate the challenges that don’t fit Rumelt’s three criteria, especially if you invested a lot of time or personnel into identifying or trying to solve them (a result of the sunk cost fallacy). In Essentialism, Greg McKeown argues that it’s easier to eliminate options when you have a clear purpose, so be sure to keep your broad issue top-of-mind during this process so you have a reminder of your purpose. Additionally, be willing to cut your losses on challenges that you decide aren’t essential, and get comfortable saying “no” to people who were invested in solving nonessential challenges.)
Exercise: Identify Your Core Problem
Rumelt argues that to solve broad issues, you need to identify the core problem and build a strategy around it. This exercise will help you apply Rumelt’s approach to a challenge you’re facing.
- Think about a broad issue you’re currently facing in your professional or personal life. Briefly describe this issue.
- Now, list at least three smaller challenges that comprise this broad issue. (For example, if your broad issue is declining sales, challenges might include ineffective marketing, product quality issues, or increased competition.)
- Of the challenges you listed, eliminate those that aren’t within your power to address. Of those left, which one do you think would be the most impactful if solved? This is likely your core problem. Explain why you chose this challenge.
