Once a man Emailed me from Italy, because he wanted to move to California. He felt he had a terrific business opportunity available to him and could be very successful. However, it would mean leaving behind his wife and his two young daughters, for at least five years. A good problem solver would know immediately he was making two very glaring errors. His first error? He wasn’t defining the problem properly, which means laying out a clear picture of the entire problem or opportunity. His second error? A very common one: he was jumping to the conclusion that he faced a dichotomy. Meaning he thought he only had the choice of moving to California, or not moving to California. A good problem solver would know that he had not categorized the problem properly. I told him he’d be crazy to be away from his family for five years. He’d miss the chance of seeing his two young daughters grow up and mature into young women. His problem was, he’d reduced the situation to a dichotomy: either move to California and leave his family behind, or not move to California. What he should be doing, was using creative thinking to find a way he could move to California and still bring his family with him.

In another instance, a woman called me from San Francisco to tell me her husband had transferred to San Diego. He’d be there for at least a year and possibly longer than that. Then they’d promote him again and probably transfer him back to the head office in San Francisco Bay area. She couldn’t decide whether to go through the trauma of selling their home, and moving to San Diego. Should she stay and wait for him to come back? To a good problem solver, this is a clear case of not thoroughly thinking through the consequences of what she was considering. A simple analysis would have given her a choice of consequences for each option that she was considering. I advised her to get herself down to San Diego on the next plane, if she cared anything at all about her marriage. She wasn’t thinking through the consequences of her actions. San Diego isn’t Sioux City, Iowa. If she let her husband play bachelor in San Diego for a whole year, the chance of it destroying their marriage was high. A simple reaction table would have told her that she had a great deal to lose and little to gain.

In a third instance, a young man asked me a question at a seminar I conducted in Guangzhou, China. He wanted me to tell him if he should marry the woman he had been dating. He loved her, and she wanted to get married, but he wasn’t so sure. Because of the Chinese “one child only” policy, men outnumber women in China. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing reports that there are now 120 males for every 100 females in China. You can imagine how hard that makes it for a man to find a bride. In problem solving terms, this is a clear case of not properly defining the problem, causing him to confuse two completely different issues. Good problem solvers don’t agonize over issues like this. They have a mental procedure they can follow very quickly, which to other people might seem instantaneous. In reality they’re quickly going through a series of steps. I’d never met the young lady, but I told him Yes he should marry, but not marry that woman. His problem was, he was tying together two separate decisions; and making them as if they were one decision. Yes, he should marry. I still think that it’s the most wonderful thing any person can do (in spite of the fact that a survey by Pew Research and reported in a cover story in Time magazine showed that 40% of Americans think that marriage is obsolete). But if my young friend in China has to ask a complete stranger whether he should marry this woman or not, then the answer has to be no. When he finds the right person for him, he’ll know it’s the right decision and he won’t be asking anyone, much less a complete stranger like me. I told him that when he finds the right woman wild horses won’t stop him from marrying her – a bold response but one that caused a huge round of applause from my audience in Guangzhou.

Tags: Clear Case, Conclusion, Consequences, Creative Thinking, Dichotomy, First Error, Francisco Bay Area, Glaring Errors, Italy, Least Five Years, Moving To California, Problem Solving, San Diego, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, Terrific Business Opportunity, Trauma, Young Women