Nat Greene > Quotes

“You must unlearn what you have learned.1 —YODA, IN STAR WARS: EPISODE V—THE EMPIRE STRIKES”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Don’t Rely on Experts Doveryai, no proveryai (trust, but verify). —OLD RUSSIAN PROVERB,”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Staying on target means understanding and measuring only what you need to in order to drill to the root cause and find a simple solution.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“whenever you read a method step such as “determine possible root causes,” this is a red flag for your problem-solving method.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“People mythologize hard problems in this way because it is comforting. If a problem becomes a supernatural titan, we can tell ourselves that there’s something special about it that has kept us from solving it, rather than our lack of skill. If it’s “more art than science,” then we’re no longer responsible for really fixing it at the root cause.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Great problem-solvers also have opinions; what makes them different is that they recognize them for what they are and then set them aside.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Successfully solving hard problems requires knowing what problem you’re solving. You should put great care into defining the problem in an accurate and precise way, as a direct and measurable observation of the problem. It must be clear how solving it translates directly to your goals. And it must absolutely not be an assumption or jump-to-conclusion.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Even when diving into a problem, there’s a fear of looking ignorant or “stupid” by asking questions one is “supposed to know.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“By eliminating the variables closest to the primary variable, we immediately eliminate many potential root causes, and we can avoid collecting data about or looking deeply into most of the process or system.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Many people accept the world the way it is, and don’t see the incredible potential that is locked behind hard problems.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“When a system isn’t working right, someone has to understand how it’s meant to work, at the right depth, in order to fix it. Your job as a problem-solver is to dig deep enough into the fundamentals of the specific parts of the system that affect the problem so you can solve it in a methodical, step-by-step way.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“correlation is not causation”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. —ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHYSICIST”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Truly great problem-solvers powerfully communicate the value of the problem-solving process and difficulty of the problem once the solution is found.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“One of the most dangerous—and most pervasive—mistakes when creating a problem definition is letting some assumption about the key drivers sneak in before really understanding the full scope of the problem.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Know what problem you’re solving. Often, people work on the wrong problem entirely by making some implicit assumption about what’s causing it. Great problem-solvers invest time upfront to make sure the problem they’re working on is well defined, measurable as a variable, and represents precisely what is wrong with the system or process.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Life gets painful both at work and at home when you’re not making decisions with facts. When all you hear are people’s opinions, you’re in the unenviable position of having to decide whose opinion to accept and invest in based on who you trust. You may have to consider who has a bias and who has an agenda.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Noticing and eliminating distractions will enable you to stay on target when you’re facing down your next complex problem.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“People are socialized not to “challenge” what respected people believe.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Don’t ask SMEs to make business decisions for you without stepping back and considering a possible conflict of interest.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Always check that you are operating at the right level and get the facts to confirm that, even when you are not invited to do so!”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. —HENRY FORD, AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“most people believe they’re making fact-based decisions, when they are, in fact, making opinion-based ones.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Embrace your ignorance. Most people try to solve problems using the knowledge they already have about a process, but it’s what you don’t know that lies between you and the solution. Often we are afraid to admit our ignorance in front of others in order to preserve our reputation. Great problem-solvers not only admit their ignorance but also embrace it and ask questions others might find “stupid,” to shatter old assumptions about the problem.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Perhaps many aid organizations make assumptions about the problem they are solving, and throw hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem to little or no effect.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“When you don’t believe in a simple solution to a hard problem, you instead believe in a complex solution. These complex solutions are easy to come by, but they tend to be expensive.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“In my own experience I have found that most problem-solving methods promote guessing at some point in the process, but that it is snuck in under disguise.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Truly solving the problem involves understanding what’s wrong and why it happened, through investigation and understanding—not by spending days or weeks testing different guesses until, hopefully, one works.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“most methods disguise the guessing stage in some fancy language, such as “determine possible root causes.” This is making a list of guesses, and at this point I hope you would read such an instruction and declare, “How the heck am I meant to do that?” Even coming up with a “hypothesis” is a guess, despite it being a scientific term. If at any point in a method you are asked to make a list, “come up with” something, or hypothesize, then avoid such a method for the junk that it is.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“how do you utilize experts properly? The first rule is stop asking them to solve your problem. Don’t ask them, “what’s causing this?” Ask them questions such as, “help me understand how this piece works”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers