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Invisible Solutions: 25 Lenses that Reframe and Help Solve Difficult Business Problems
Solve any problem faster, with less risk and lower cost
Unprecedented access to infinite solutions has led us to realize that having all of the answers is not the answer. From innovation teams to creativity experts to crowdsourcing, we've turned from one source to another, spending endless cycles pursuing piecemeal solutions to each challenge we face.
What if your organization had an effective systematic approach to deal with any problem?
To find better solutions, you need to first ask better questions. The questions you ask determine which solutions you'll see and which will remain hidden.
This compact yet powerful book contains the formulas to reframe any problem multiple ways, using 25 lenses to help you gain different perspectives. With visual examples and guidance, it contains everything you need to start mastering any challenge.
This book will help
Discover why we are hardwired to ask ineffective questions and learn to work through those barriers.Understand the power and importance of well-defined questions.Reframe any problem multiple ways to help you find the optimal solution.Move from idea-based innovation to the question-based innovation that drives higher ROI.Apply just one of the lenses and you will quickly discover better solutions. Apply all of them and you will be able to solve any problem, in business and in life.
Unprecedented access to infinite solutions has led us to realize that having all of the answers is not the answer. From innovation teams to creativity experts to crowdsourcing, we've turned from one source to another, spending endless cycles pursuing piecemeal solutions to each challenge we face.
What if your organization had an effective systematic approach to deal with any problem?
To find better solutions, you need to first ask better questions. The questions you ask determine which solutions you'll see and which will remain hidden.
This compact yet powerful book contains the formulas to reframe any problem multiple ways, using 25 lenses to help you gain different perspectives. With visual examples and guidance, it contains everything you need to start mastering any challenge.
This book will help
Discover why we are hardwired to ask ineffective questions and learn to work through those barriers.Understand the power and importance of well-defined questions.Reframe any problem multiple ways to help you find the optimal solution.Move from idea-based innovation to the question-based innovation that drives higher ROI.Apply just one of the lenses and you will quickly discover better solutions. Apply all of them and you will be able to solve any problem, in business and in life.
175 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 3, 2020
118 people are currently reading
279 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 14, 2021
Business leaders must read this book. Great leaders ask great questions. All leaders are readers who gather differing perspectives from a diverse group of advisors and mentors. Here are some highlights from this book:
The word innovation is used everywhere. The term is often used to describe anything unusual or novel, even if it is not valuable. Innovation is not about novelty or ideas; it is about defining and solving significant problems. When you view innovation through the perspective of problem-solving, you will discover that everyone can participate. It’s not separate from the business— it is the business.
Shapiro discovered the process for driving better results doesn’t start with great ideas—it starts with better questions. The least understood step of innovation and problem-solving is problem definition.
Better Questions Lead to Better Answers
I loved this example. I've read this in other books as well - A small U.S. airport surveyed its passengers and discovered that their biggest complaint was wait times at baggage claim. Being good innovators, they took to the task of “speeding up the bags.” They made a sizable investment on faster conveyors, additional baggage handlers, and newer technology. They reduced the wait time by half! When passengers were surveyed soon after that, their biggest complaint remained, “baggage claim wait time.” So, the airport approached the problem in another way. Instead of speeding up the bags, they slowed down the passengers. They reconfigured the airport so that it would take the passengers eight to ten minutes to get from the plane to the baggage carousel. As a result, when the passengers arrived at baggage claim, their luggage was waiting for them. Instead of asking, “How can we reduce the wait time?” they changed the question to “How can we improve the wait experience?” When we don’t understand something, we try hard to map it to anything we do understand from our past to make sense of it. Unfortunately, our past experiences may have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
What’s the Impact of Poor Questions?
One word in a question can have a huge impact on the thought process and, therefore, on the range of solutions. For example, when NASA was addressing the challenge of dirty clothes in space, they found one word made all the difference. Asking, “How can we get clothes clean?” yielded solutions around cleaning fluids. But “How can we keep clothes clean?” provided different responses. In this case, the solution became a material science problem involving clothing with built-in antimicrobials. Questions are powerful. And the words we choose for them are critical because changing just one word can completely change your answers.
Why Do We Ask Terrible Questions?
People generally form a solution in their mind and then ask questions to validate it.
Our questions can be powerful tools for learning, but only if they challenge our assumptions rather than confirm our beliefs.
Challenge-Centered Innovation
We strive for quantity of ideas when, in fact, we really should be striving for quality of questions. Quantity drives waste; quality drives value.
Leveraging Challenges for Innovation
Although you likely have been told to think outside the box to find creative solutions, the reality is that you want to find a better box. The better box is that well-framed challenge that drives high-value innovation. If starting with ideas isn’t the answer, where do we begin? We start with questions. The question is an issue, problem, challenge, or opportunity that, if solved and implemented, will provide great value to the organization.
Challenge-centered innovation starts with a specific, well-defined, and differentiated challenge. Identify and solve the opportunities that help you stand out from the competition because these opportunities are the ones that will add the most value. The next step is to set clear objective evaluation criteria that help with the selection process. By having clear and objective criteria, you know when you get a good solution and can objectively choose the best ones.
Get the money, people, sponsors, and owners upfront. This ensures that when you find a great solution, you can move forward immediately. The advantage of identifying challenges over ideas is that when you look for solutions to your well-framed challenges, you don’t get inundated with thousands of useless ideas. After solutions have been identified, it’s time to move into implementation. It’s important to start building small, scalable experiments that allow you to test your hypothesis.
Shapiro outlines four steps in his FAST Innovation process:
Focus—Focus on differentiators
Ask—Ask better questions
Shift—Shift your perspective to find solutions
Test—Test, experiment, and implement solution
With Challenge-Centered Innovation and the FAST Innovation process, you now have the tools to start creating a high-performing innovation culture. When you get everyone collaborating around well-framed challenges, you increase ROI, drive higher levels of efficiency, and reduce overall risk.
The key to finding better solutions is to look at the problem with different eyes. We need to shine a light on our blind spots. We need to bring our assumptions to the surface. And we need to use tools (e.g., the lenses) to help us see opportunities.
The word innovation is used everywhere. The term is often used to describe anything unusual or novel, even if it is not valuable. Innovation is not about novelty or ideas; it is about defining and solving significant problems. When you view innovation through the perspective of problem-solving, you will discover that everyone can participate. It’s not separate from the business— it is the business.
Shapiro discovered the process for driving better results doesn’t start with great ideas—it starts with better questions. The least understood step of innovation and problem-solving is problem definition.
Better Questions Lead to Better Answers
I loved this example. I've read this in other books as well - A small U.S. airport surveyed its passengers and discovered that their biggest complaint was wait times at baggage claim. Being good innovators, they took to the task of “speeding up the bags.” They made a sizable investment on faster conveyors, additional baggage handlers, and newer technology. They reduced the wait time by half! When passengers were surveyed soon after that, their biggest complaint remained, “baggage claim wait time.” So, the airport approached the problem in another way. Instead of speeding up the bags, they slowed down the passengers. They reconfigured the airport so that it would take the passengers eight to ten minutes to get from the plane to the baggage carousel. As a result, when the passengers arrived at baggage claim, their luggage was waiting for them. Instead of asking, “How can we reduce the wait time?” they changed the question to “How can we improve the wait experience?” When we don’t understand something, we try hard to map it to anything we do understand from our past to make sense of it. Unfortunately, our past experiences may have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
What’s the Impact of Poor Questions?
One word in a question can have a huge impact on the thought process and, therefore, on the range of solutions. For example, when NASA was addressing the challenge of dirty clothes in space, they found one word made all the difference. Asking, “How can we get clothes clean?” yielded solutions around cleaning fluids. But “How can we keep clothes clean?” provided different responses. In this case, the solution became a material science problem involving clothing with built-in antimicrobials. Questions are powerful. And the words we choose for them are critical because changing just one word can completely change your answers.
Why Do We Ask Terrible Questions?
People generally form a solution in their mind and then ask questions to validate it.
Our questions can be powerful tools for learning, but only if they challenge our assumptions rather than confirm our beliefs.
Challenge-Centered Innovation
We strive for quantity of ideas when, in fact, we really should be striving for quality of questions. Quantity drives waste; quality drives value.
Leveraging Challenges for Innovation
Although you likely have been told to think outside the box to find creative solutions, the reality is that you want to find a better box. The better box is that well-framed challenge that drives high-value innovation. If starting with ideas isn’t the answer, where do we begin? We start with questions. The question is an issue, problem, challenge, or opportunity that, if solved and implemented, will provide great value to the organization.
Challenge-centered innovation starts with a specific, well-defined, and differentiated challenge. Identify and solve the opportunities that help you stand out from the competition because these opportunities are the ones that will add the most value. The next step is to set clear objective evaluation criteria that help with the selection process. By having clear and objective criteria, you know when you get a good solution and can objectively choose the best ones.
Get the money, people, sponsors, and owners upfront. This ensures that when you find a great solution, you can move forward immediately. The advantage of identifying challenges over ideas is that when you look for solutions to your well-framed challenges, you don’t get inundated with thousands of useless ideas. After solutions have been identified, it’s time to move into implementation. It’s important to start building small, scalable experiments that allow you to test your hypothesis.
Shapiro outlines four steps in his FAST Innovation process:
Focus—Focus on differentiators
Ask—Ask better questions
Shift—Shift your perspective to find solutions
Test—Test, experiment, and implement solution
With Challenge-Centered Innovation and the FAST Innovation process, you now have the tools to start creating a high-performing innovation culture. When you get everyone collaborating around well-framed challenges, you increase ROI, drive higher levels of efficiency, and reduce overall risk.
The key to finding better solutions is to look at the problem with different eyes. We need to shine a light on our blind spots. We need to bring our assumptions to the surface. And we need to use tools (e.g., the lenses) to help us see opportunities.
January 21, 2025
repetitive
Read for work. Repetitive. However I did have some aha moments but 25 of the same shit. It’s a no for me dawg.
Read for work. Repetitive. However I did have some aha moments but 25 of the same shit. It’s a no for me dawg.
May 9, 2020
I got a digital review copy of this book via NetGalley and loved the book so much that i read the entire book back to back in one sitting and came back to it multiple times already.
I am passionate about innovation and write a lot about it on my blog and talk about it in my podcast and so I get excited when I get to read a book about innovation that hits all the right notes and results in a sublime symphony.
What i liked about the book:
1} The premise that innovation depends more on the kind of questions we are able to ask is such a no-brainer but not many organisations are able to put this in practice. Maybe, it is not easy being asked some of these questions and it is even harder to ask them yourself and not know where they will lead you and your team. The illusion of control is lost early in the process.
2} The 25 frames that he offers to change perspectives and ask more interesting questions are all great. I have used some of them in my work but a few are completely new to me.
3} The short stories about how the frames could be put to use - the questions that we could potentially ask to reframe makes using these reframes much simpler and easier.
What would I have done differently:
1} The only thing that i could have done differently than what Stephen has already done is to have spent a bit more content on the innovation framework than he has done. Such a brilliant framework deserves a separate book of its own.
All in all, if you are a business leader and want to foster innovation within your organisation, get everyone on the team to read this book :-)
I am passionate about innovation and write a lot about it on my blog and talk about it in my podcast and so I get excited when I get to read a book about innovation that hits all the right notes and results in a sublime symphony.
What i liked about the book:
1} The premise that innovation depends more on the kind of questions we are able to ask is such a no-brainer but not many organisations are able to put this in practice. Maybe, it is not easy being asked some of these questions and it is even harder to ask them yourself and not know where they will lead you and your team. The illusion of control is lost early in the process.
2} The 25 frames that he offers to change perspectives and ask more interesting questions are all great. I have used some of them in my work but a few are completely new to me.
3} The short stories about how the frames could be put to use - the questions that we could potentially ask to reframe makes using these reframes much simpler and easier.
What would I have done differently:
1} The only thing that i could have done differently than what Stephen has already done is to have spent a bit more content on the innovation framework than he has done. Such a brilliant framework deserves a separate book of its own.
All in all, if you are a business leader and want to foster innovation within your organisation, get everyone on the team to read this book :-)
March 19, 2020
This is a book that shouldn't sit on your shelf, but become part of your weekly review. Are you asking the right questions? Do you KNOW your industry as it exists today?
Not only am I giving this 5 starts, I just ordered 5 copies for my team.
Not only am I giving this 5 starts, I just ordered 5 copies for my team.
August 2, 2021
Практически книга по ТРИЗ, но с хорошим пояснением как его приложить к бизнес задачам. Полезны не столько линзы, которые повторяют ТРИЗовские методы, а правила выбора задач для решения
August 13, 2023
A good structured approach to problem solving and innovation....some really great examples as well
March 16, 2020
I was given a copy of this book to read by net galley in return for a review, but it’s the sort of book I would have purchased and read anyway.
The book centres primarily on the concept that our general approach to solving problems or should I say find solutions is flawed.
For example, the book starts by stating that leadership teams using the phrase ‘don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions’ are looking at things the wrong way. Finding problems is exactly what you should be doing.
Thereafter it’s about framing the right sort of question or questions to work the problem to identify the specific challenge / challenges and how these can be overcome.
The examples used are primarily business centric, but concepts are transferable to day to day life.
To use the concepts in the book would require you to revisit the chapters and practice their implementation. The author does thoughtfully set that expectation.
My criticism is that there is a lot of overlap between the ‘lenses’, I have no doubt the concepts could be further simplified so that the ideas could to adopted more quickly.
The book centres primarily on the concept that our general approach to solving problems or should I say find solutions is flawed.
For example, the book starts by stating that leadership teams using the phrase ‘don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions’ are looking at things the wrong way. Finding problems is exactly what you should be doing.
Thereafter it’s about framing the right sort of question or questions to work the problem to identify the specific challenge / challenges and how these can be overcome.
The examples used are primarily business centric, but concepts are transferable to day to day life.
To use the concepts in the book would require you to revisit the chapters and practice their implementation. The author does thoughtfully set that expectation.
My criticism is that there is a lot of overlap between the ‘lenses’, I have no doubt the concepts could be further simplified so that the ideas could to adopted more quickly.
November 7, 2022
It's an interesting book and easy to read. It remains to be seen how easy it is to put into practice - but I expect that to be doable as well (more a question of practice and persistence).
Some of these practices I do already in day-to-day work, like ask "What's the _real_ problem?" and "Why?" repeatedly. And test ideas with good experimentation practices (with an hypothesis that can be refuted).
Others I'm interested to try out, like list your assumptions about a problem and pretend the opposite is true - what would that change?
I like that the book also tells you where to even find the challenges to apply the lenses to! Given that I'm not a CEO (yet) I'll be most interested to see if these techniques are also helpful for business challenges that aren't at the level of the direction of the company but smaller in nature.
Some of these practices I do already in day-to-day work, like ask "What's the _real_ problem?" and "Why?" repeatedly. And test ideas with good experimentation practices (with an hypothesis that can be refuted).
Others I'm interested to try out, like list your assumptions about a problem and pretend the opposite is true - what would that change?
I like that the book also tells you where to even find the challenges to apply the lenses to! Given that I'm not a CEO (yet) I'll be most interested to see if these techniques are also helpful for business challenges that aren't at the level of the direction of the company but smaller in nature.
May 7, 2020
I loved reading the insights on innovation in this book, my favorite chapter covered the "don't think outside the box, find a better box" that provided a fresh outlook to idea generation, problem solving and innovation.
In my view, this book would be ideal for anyone who wants to solve a problem or have a different perspective on a matter- be it in their personal development, a project or at work. You may not use all 25 lenses, but you could surely be in need of a couple of them.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.
In my view, this book would be ideal for anyone who wants to solve a problem or have a different perspective on a matter- be it in their personal development, a project or at work. You may not use all 25 lenses, but you could surely be in need of a couple of them.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.
April 29, 2022
Easy and short to read. You can go cover to cover or use it more as a reference from time to time. The concept is key - taking the time to correctly phrase the question to be solved AND ensuring different ways to explore this question to be able to get out of our "existing boxes". A lot of very interesting examples, leading to a pragmatic exploration in the impact the words we choose can have in the way we work or the solution we create. I particularly love the shift from ideas generation to producing a good challenge, and with it the very brief exploration on confirmation bias.
June 4, 2022
I really like pragmatic books like this one! Definitely worth a read if you’re looking to deepen your knowledge on problem solving and innovation. The author starts by explaining why the lenses are important, then introduces them and finally presents innovation frameworks where these lenses can be applied to maximize results and lower waste. As simple as that.
November 12, 2022
The book starts off interesting, then gets very boring and goes an a haphazard repetitive circle, then attempt to come together at the end. Ultimately, it has a few intriguing concept that are sprinkled over ‘suggestions’ that you have undoubtedly heard multiple times before. Ironically, this was a good idea, poorly executed. Should have been a article.
February 26, 2021
Great resource!
Easy, fast read to learn about approaching innovating and problems in business. I would recommend as a field guide for people looking to experiment with methods of problem solving.
Easy, fast read to learn about approaching innovating and problems in business. I would recommend as a field guide for people looking to experiment with methods of problem solving.
September 3, 2022
A great framework and insights to guide innovation efforts and teams in any organization. "We strive for quantity of ideas when, in fact, we really should be striving for quality of questions. Quantity drives waste; quality drives value"💡
October 31, 2021
Good ideas in a very short bullet-point chapter format
April 10, 2020
The ideas about reframing problems - how to adjust so that you're asking the right questions and not wasting time and energy - are well laid out in this book, and are useful in a wide range of situations. The acronyms and jargon are business-ce tric and profit oriented, however, which begins to grate on one's nerves, if you are, for instance, looking at things from a public policy or societal point of view. Good information, so-so execution.
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