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Stop Guessing
Book

Stop Guessing

The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

Nat Green
Berrett-Koehler, 2017

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Recommendation

Consultant Nat Greene shows you how to address difficult issues and solve tough problems by using nine strategic problem-solving behaviors. He says you should stop guessing and learn how to “smell” problems. Other steps can help, such as acknowledging your ignorance and making sure you are defining the problem accurately. Greene urges delving into the science behind a problematic system, shooting for simple solutions, making choices based on solid factual evidence and staying on target until you unravel the knot. He provides many interesting, entertaining anecdotes to enliven his succinct guide. Greene offers the most help to those who lack an engineering background and who feel overly reliant on experts, but anyone trying to analyze an issue can benefit from his structured framework. getAbstract recommends his approach as a helping hand for those who want to adopt a specific problem-solving strategy.

Take-Aways

  • Great problem solvers use a set of nine “behaviors” to address difficult issues:
  • “Smell the problem” by using all your senses to analyze it.
  • “Embrace your ignorance” and investigate. Skilled problem solvers admit what they don’t know rather than experimenting with different guesses to see what works.

About the Author

International consultant Nat Greene has explored engineering design, global trade, organizational change and political reform. He co-founded Stroud International and became its CEO.

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    J. M. 6 months ago
    It's a nice sumarry
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    A. 7 years ago
    It's a good summary for hesitant problem solvers.
    A paragraph dedicated to how to gather data in a simple way would be appreciated.