Why Most Problem-Solving Training Is Backwards (And What Actually Works)

Related Reading: Check out our thoughts on strategic thinking and analytical training | workplace problem-solving courses | creative problem-solving workshops

Three months ago, I watched a room full of senior managers spend four hours trying to solve a fictional case study about a widget factory. The facilitator was thrilled. "Great engagement!" she chirped as participants shuffled through laminated worksheets and sticky notes.

Meanwhile, their actual workplace was burning down. Literally. Well, not literally, but close enough. Customer complaints were through the roof, staff turnover was at 40%, and their biggest client had just terminated their contract. But hey, at least they could now identify the six steps of creative problem-solving using the facilitator's proprietary framework.

This is everything wrong with how we teach problem-solving in Australia today.

The Backwards Logic of Modern Training

Here's what happens in 90% of problem-solving workshops across the country: We start with theory, move to generic exercises, then maybe—if there's time—touch on real workplace issues. It's completely backwards.

Real problem-solving doesn't begin with frameworks. It begins with frustration, urgency, and the messy reality of competing priorities. Yet we train people as if problems arrive neatly packaged with clear parameters and obvious stakeholders.

I've been running workplace training programs for seventeen years now, and I can tell you that the best problem-solvers I've met didn't learn their skills from workbooks. They learned them from being thrown in the deep end and having to figure it out fast.

Take Sarah, a team leader at a Brisbane logistics company. She once had to resolve a situation where half her drivers were threatening to quit because the new GPS system was sending them down roads that couldn't handle their trucks. No amount of "define-analyse-implement" methodology would have helped her in that moment. What she needed was the ability to think on her feet, negotiate with angry drivers, push back on IT, and find a workaround that kept goods moving.

But here's the thing—Sarah's problem-solving genius wasn't innate. It was developed through experience, yes, but also through specific practices that most training programs completely ignore.

What Actually Develops Problem-Solving Skills

Forget the seven-step models for a minute. The most effective problem-solvers I work with share three characteristics that you won't find in any corporate training manual:

They're professionally paranoid. Good problem-solvers assume things will go wrong before they do. They're constantly running "what if" scenarios in their heads. Not in a anxious way, but in a prepared way. They've trained themselves to spot the early warning signs that everyone else misses.

This isn't pessimism—it's pattern recognition. And you can't teach pattern recognition through role-plays about fictional scenarios. You develop it by paying attention to real situations over time.

They triangulate information sources. When facing a problem, weak problem-solvers go looking for the answer. Strong ones gather multiple perspectives and look for where they converge or conflict. They talk to the person who reported the problem, the person responsible for the area, and the person who'll be affected by any solution.

Most training programs teach people to gather data, but they don't teach the art of reading between the lines or recognising when someone's not telling you the full story.

They're comfortable with incomplete information. This is the big one. Academic problem-solving assumes you can gather all relevant information before making decisions. Real-world problem-solving requires action with partial data, constant adjustment, and the confidence to change course when new information emerges.

The Training That Actually Works

So what does effective problem-solving development look like? Here's what I've learned works:

Start with real problems, not case studies. The best creative problem-solving sessions I run begin with participants bringing actual current challenges from their workplace. We work on those, not on hypothetical scenarios about manufacturing widgets or managing fictional team conflicts.

Yes, it's messier. Yes, it takes longer. Yes, you can't predict exactly what will come up. But that's precisely the point. Real problems are messy, take longer than expected, and throw up surprises.

Focus on thinking tools, not process steps. Instead of teaching people to follow a prescribed sequence, teach them thinking tools they can apply flexibly. Things like assumption mapping, constraint analysis, and stakeholder impact assessment. Tools they can combine and recombine depending on the situation.

Practice with time pressure. Most workplace problems don't give you the luxury of working through them methodically over several weeks. Build time constraints into your training. Force people to make decisions with incomplete information and then reflect on what they learned.

Include failure analysis. Get people to bring examples of problems they solved badly and work backwards to understand what went wrong. This is incredibly powerful but almost never happens in traditional training because it's uncomfortable.

The Perth Principle (Or Why Location Matters)

One thing I've noticed after working with teams across Australia: problem-solving approaches that work in Melbourne don't always translate to Perth, and what works in Sydney might be completely wrong for Darwin. It's not just about corporate culture—it's about practical constraints.

Perth teams deal with different supply chain realities than Melbourne teams. Brisbane organisations face different regulatory environments than Adelaide ones. Yet most problem-solving training acts as if all workplaces are identical.

The best problem-solvers I know have deep contextual knowledge about how things actually work in their industry and location. They know which suppliers are reliable, which regulations actually get enforced, and which internal processes can be bent without breaking.

This knowledge can't be taught in a workshop. But workshops can teach people how to acquire it systematically and how to factor it into their problem-solving approach.

What We're Getting Wrong About Creative Problem-Solving

Let's talk about creativity for a moment. Most workplace creativity training focuses on brainstorming techniques and thinking outside the box. But the most creative problem-solvers I work with aren't particularly creative in the artistic sense. They're just very good at seeing connections others miss.

They notice when a solution that worked in one department might apply to a completely different challenge. They recognise patterns from other industries that could be adapted. They ask "what if we tried this differently?" not because they're trying to be creative, but because they're trying to be effective.

Real creative problem-solving isn't about generating lots of ideas—it's about generating the right idea by looking at the problem from angles others haven't considered.

The Follow-Through Problem

Here's something that drives me nuts about most problem-solving training: it ends when the solution is identified. As if identifying solutions was the hard part.

In my experience, implementation is where 70% of good solutions die. Not because they weren't good solutions, but because the people who developed them didn't think through the change management, resource requirements, and resistance they'd encounter.

Effective problem-solving training needs to include implementation planning, stakeholder buy-in, and monitoring systems. Otherwise, you're just training people to be good at theoretical problem-solving, which is about as useful as being good at theoretical swimming.

Looking Forward

The workplace is changing faster than our training methods. Remote work, supply chain volatility, skills shortages, and technological disruption are creating new categories of problems that didn't exist five years ago.

Yet we're still teaching problem-solving as if the biggest challenge people face is optimising existing processes. The problems today's managers need to solve aren't efficiency problems—they're adaptation problems. How do you maintain team cohesion when half your staff work from home? How do you manage customer expectations when your suppliers can't guarantee delivery dates?

These require different thinking skills than traditional problem-solving frameworks address. They require comfort with ambiguity, systems thinking, and the ability to experiment quickly and learn from failure.

The organisations that recognise this and adapt their training accordingly will have a significant advantage. The ones that stick with worksheets about widget factories will find themselves increasingly irrelevant.

Which category will yours be in?

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Want to explore more practical approaches to workplace challenges? You might find value in sessions on root cause analysis or critical thinking development.