43. 99 Problems but a Tube Display Board ain’t one

At the risk of this sounding like the start of some wanky Cover Letter, problem solving is something that I quite enjoy.

Now, whether that’s a sign of me getting old and boring, or my generally substandard personality (or both), I’m not quite sure. Though it is something that I like doing.

One of the things that I find interesting about it, is that the overall approach to solving a problem can be similar across most areas of life.

Whether it’s a work issue, a relationship issue, a health issue, a technical issue, or a whatever it may be issue, then although the specifics are obviously different, a lot of the overarching principles in coming to a good solution are the same.

At the risk of stating the potentially bleeding obvious (which I appreciate most of these blogs could be caveated with...), the general first step in whatever problem it is we’re trying to solve is a proper diagnosis of the issue. An understanding of what the problem actually is.

And the reason that I state the potentially bleeding obvious is because I can’t help but feel that we sometimes have a tendency to jump over this first step, and directly to solutions.

We like solutions, and often place a disproportionate amount of emphasis on them.

To go back to Cover Letters (and general CVs and LinkedIn type job stuff), we commonly see lines like “I’m a hard working passionate solution focused team player”.

It’s rarer to see a “I’m hard working passionate diagnosis focused team player”.

Solutions are good, and by coming to a quick solution, we can feel like we’re rapidly getting rid of the relevant problem.

However, although solutions can be good, they might not necessarily be if the diagnosis isn’t.

Incorrect diagnosis of the problem = potentially incorrect solution.

Potentially incorrect solution = potentially making the problem worse.

Staying in the workplace, let's take a common office job related issue; a sore back.

You know, the one you get from poor posture, being sat down too much, and generally carrying your colleagues.

We may think something along the lines of:

Problem = Sore back.

Solution = Do more stretching.

This may be a good solution, but it also may not be.

If the actual issue with our back is that it’s weak, or underdeveloped in relation to the rest of our body, it may be more beneficial to try and strengthen it (as opposed to lengthen it).

By cracking on with our initial solution, by doing more stretching, it may actually make our back weaker, and just compound the problem. Wrong diagnosis, wrong solution.

We may see a similar idea when it comes to interacting with people/general relationships.

Problem: Hmm, [insert relevant person] is being short with me.

Solution: I know, I’ll try and chat to them more.

Of course, this may be a good solution, but it also may not be.

If the actual issue is that they’re having a shit day, or that we’re generally being slightly overbearing, then by us being even more chatty, it may make matters worse.

In both cases (and this seems to be quite a common issue in life), although the intentions are good, the outcome is bad.

Our proper diagnosis-less solutions are steeped in logic, but have the opposite intended effect. We mean well, but we’ve made things worse.

In one of his excellent Ted Talks, Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of the Ad Agency Ogilvy & Mather) provides a couple of great travel-based examples of how a solid diagnosis can produce solid solutions, and solid results.

First up, the Eurostar (which, side note, is a bloomin’ lovely way to travel).

In the travel industry, a lot of service improvement suggestions and general energy are focused on rational things such as journey times.

As such, in 2009, to improve the customer experience, Eurostar was looking to invest £6 billion to reduce the London-Paris journey time by 40 minutes.

A lot of money, but seems logical.

However, Sutherland felt that they were looking at the wrong thing.

He argued that it would be more beneficial to look at the problem from a psychological point of view, as opposed to a technological point of view.

This was based on the insight that actual time and perceived time are two very different things.

Whereas engineers measure time in seconds, humans measure time in things like boredom, frustration, or enjoyment.

In short, the journey time wasn’t a quantity of time issue for customers, it was a quality of time issue.

Different diagnosis = different solution.

Sutherland suggested that rather than spending £6 billion on making it faster, they should instead spend £50 million (if my maths is correct, not even 1% of the cost) on putting Wi-Fi on the trains.

The actual journey time would still be the same, but as the experience would be incomparably better, the perceived time would be much different.

It’s not the time itself, but how we can use it.

Sutherland goes on to say:

“If you really want to spend a billion pounds, here’s what you could do: Hire all of the world’s top male and female supermodels and get them to walk up and down the train and handing out free Château Pétrus to all the passengers. You’ll have saved yourself five billion pounds, and people will ask for the trains to be slowed down”.

This whole quantity of time issue vs quality of time was also an insight when it came to improving the customer experience on the London Underground.

The single biggest improvement in passenger satisfaction on the Tube (per £ spent) didn’t come from new trains, more regular services, the implementation of Wifi, or any of that.

It came from when they simply installed display boards on the platforms indicating how long it was until the next tube.

The nature of a wait isn’t just dependent on its duration, but also on other factors. One of these factors is the level of uncertainty we experience during a wait.

Basically, if we don’t know when our train is going to turn up, it’s fucking annoying.

Waiting 7 minutes for a train with a countdown clock tends to be less irritating than waiting 4 minutes without any indication of when it’s going to arrive.

Appreciate this isn’t the clearest of pictures (glorious day btw!), but this is the board on the Chiswick Park station platform where I travel home after work.

For some reason, as you can see (well, ish), it rarely shows the amount of time until the next train. It could be 2 minutes, it could be 20 minutes. This unknown is a bit of a ballache.

As Sutherland alludes to, our brains don’t necessarily hate waiting, but they don’t seem to like the uncertainty. Whereas the insertion of these boards don’t change the actual waiting time - they do change our experience of the wait, and therefore the perceived time.

A few years ago, I heard an Einstein quote which went something like “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”

I remember thinking that it sounded pretty clever, but it didn’t massively resonate with me (probably for that reason!) However, I’m starting to understand his point.

Problem solving may sound like some sort of clichéd corporate jargon (like your 'blue sky thinking' and your 'touching base offline'), but if we can get past the icky nature of the term, it's quite a useful thing.

Despite it being something we do on a daily basis, actually doing it well is much easier said than done. Though whatever issue we’re faced with, a solid diagnosis seems to be a fairly solid place to start.

It may not save us £6 Billion, but it may save us a bit of hassle.

And I’m sure we could all do with a little less of that...