Conflict with your children is inevitable and necessary. No matter how harmonious the family environment you work in, your children will challenge you by helping them grow. You'll fuck yourselves up, often over things you least expect. In my case, I found myself being challenged by my daughter about a seemingly innocuous treat:Girl Scout Cookies.
Like many young girls, my daughter Annie was an avid Scout. So when it came time to sell their traditional pastries, Annie approached the task with enthusiasm. She wanted to excel in sales, both for the good of the organization and for the prize money that came with high sales.
Annie enlisted me to help her sell cookies at LeapFrog, where I had recently invented the LeapPad and where many young cookie lovers would love to help out a sweet Girl Scout. Annie often visited the office as a vocal talent, recording for the LeapPad, and she knew a lot of people. I couldn't wait to see her show up in her Girl Scout uniform. It was a unique bonding opportunity for us and a proud moment for me as a father.
Unfortunately, there was a problem. My wife and I had learned, long before the general public, of the serious negative health consequences of partially hydrogenated oils, now more commonly referred to as trans fats. We had eliminated foods containing trans fats from our family's diet. When I looked at the ingredient list for Girl Scout Cookies, I was amazed to see trans fat as a key ingredient (thankfully trans fat has been largely removed from cookies since).
I do. I reported to Annie, and we immediately got into a fight.
"Do you want me to sell my friends cookies that we wouldn't eat ourselves?" What do we know toxic? I asked, admittedly speeding up the drama.
"But Dad, those are Boy Scout Cookies!" Said Annie. My campaign against trans fats gained momentum when Girl Scout Cookies were in play.
"Alright, let me think about it," I said. Annie sighed, knowing that I wouldn't come back to her with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. I would like to talk about the PTS – the problem to be solved, something that my career has shown me was fundamental to success.
Related: How to solve any problem that gets in your way
Effective and ethical problem solving
Annie just wanted to sell the cookies. But I knew they were seriously unhealthy for people. More importantly, I knew letting Annie compromise our values in the name of a prize would set a bad example and was not good parenting. So what could we do?
Most ongoing conflicts stem from a critical error:people do not clearly define and agree with the problem to be solved. Worse, they often solve the wrong problem. People usually ignore the definition of the problem and focus on treating the symptoms. Annie and I had to identify the main problem, carefully craft the appropriate problem statement, and then agree to solve it.
I really wanted to help my daughter, but not at the expense of the integrity of our family or the community. health of my colleagues. After a patient exchange of questions and answers, frustrating but enlightening for Annie, we realized that the problem was less about selling boxed cookies and more about helping with fundraising. We came up with the idea of baking our own healthy cookies for Annie to sell, assuming we could get the Scoutmaster's approval, which gave Annie another opportunity to learn how to make propositions to her supervisors. on a project. She got that approval, and Annie and I had a magical weekend cooking together. She sold every last cookie to my colleagues at LeapFrog and won the prize she had been looking for.
Why the PTS matters
The Girl Scout Cookie story is a Marggraff family tradition now that Annie is an adult, and I look back on it as a watershed moment on her journey to becoming a full foundress. Finding the PTS through forensic questions and answers changed his attitude towards "unsolvable" problems and became a fun experience instead of a source of frustration.
The desire and ability to seek and Identifying the clear and correct PTS is absolutely crucial to a founder's mindset – a way to approach your work with the productive and insightful perspective of a problem solver. By encouraging Annie to really think about the problem we needed to solve, I helped her think critically about solving difficult scenarios. People often run in circles trying to solve problems because they are looking for the symptoms of a problem, not its cause. Once you've properly articulated the core problem, the solution often presents itself.
Related: How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Learning to identify the correct PTS is a skill. Like any skill, it takes time to cultivate. Here are three helpful steps in shaping this critical ability:
1. Start with your values in mind.
When you have clearly defined values, problem solving becomes much easier. Right away, you have a framework to approach a problem because you are guided by your ethics as valuable constraints in defining your PTS. In the story I told about Annie, I made a commitment to solve the problem. I knew that some solutions, such as selling the original Girl Scout cookies, didn't align with our values of family and societal health. Once she and I understood and accepted this, we were able, with a little coaching, to think creatively to identify the real problem.
2. Identify your problem calmly and one step at a time.
Our instinct when a conflict arises is to react immediately. When someone feels slighted in the office, we often say whatever comes to mind to assuage their feelings. When an investor criticizes a product, we often become defensive and try to rationalize our solution or try to solve the same problem in a different way. However, this initial instinct is not focused on finding the real PTS.
With scorned colleagues, go ahead and apologize if you feel you have created undue offense, but think about why the situation arose in the first place. Maybe you're frustrated with performance, or maybe your communication has faltered. Resolving these issues will lead to a better working relationship.
In the business world, if you find yourself at the end of investor criticism, accept their comments without ego and don't move on to an immediate solution. Legally, respectfully, question the provocateur and listen carefully. Review your main needs as well as any changes that may have occurred in the market and decide if you are solving the correct problem. Identifying the right PTS requires careful, complete and critical thinking rather than rushing to action at the first signs of trouble.
3. Ask “why?”
When you think you have defined the problem statement, stop and ask “why?” Answer that, then ask "why?" " again. Keep asking until you get to the real PTS.
The first time I asked Annie why she wanted to sell Girl Scout Cookies, she said, "Because I have to." After my second request, she said, “Because I was told so.” By my fourth “why” to Annie, she became frustrated. By my seventh “why,” she had gotten engaged and started to think critically. (I was patient and persistent, which is important in these situations.) That's when we realized this was about fundraising, not boxes of Boy Scout cookies.
In the years following the great Girl Scout bakery adventure, Annie became a successful founder. She's now a nationwide Step Ahead, a nonprofit program she founded for children on the autism spectrum, and she's full of motivation and clarity of mind. She didn't develop these skills overnight, but rather through persistent practice in many situations (baking cookies is just one).
Whenever you apply yourself to finding the good problem to solve, you reinforce the state of mind of the founder in yourself and around you. You'll do more than just solve problems effectively – you'll all also become leaders and critical thinkers.
Related: 5 tips to inspire an innovative mindset
