We all suffer from hard problems that seem unsolvable. They exist in every home, every business, every community. They keep you awake at night, waste your time and money, chase away your dreams, and eat away at your confidence. Our normal attempts to tackle those challenges might include following our heart, losing hours in research before narrowing down the best option, waffling between choices until you’re forced to make a decision, or ignoring the problem until things the situation explodes like a mushroom cloud.
Even after all those attempts, sometimes your final decision comes down to simply guessing at the best option. But what if there was a better way?
Today’s featured author wants to see you bypass all that stress and become the best problem-solver you can be! He’s pinpointed nine specific behaviors that can stop wasting time and money (and sleep) and give you confidence to solve the hard problems, build alignment to implement the right solution, identify more important and valuable opportunities that are being ignored, and even help others to be better problem‐solvers.
Meet the Author — Nat Greene
Nat Greene is a business leader, author, and champion of great problem-solving. He helps smart people make radically better decisions, and all his activities and interests are tied to this mission. Nat helped found and run Stroud international and is the author of two books: Wedged is a look into some of the drivers behind political dysfunction in the US, and Stop Guessing explores the behaviors of great problem-solvers.
Nat’s upbringing ingrained an intense drive to help people develop an Abundant Thinking mindset, understanding that more is always possible. He was born and raised in Hong Kong during a period of immense growth in social mobility, influenced by not only dreamers but also by those looking to push educational and professional boundaries. His father, a professor of material science, taught him about problem-solving at a young age by taking him around the city and helping him to explore what was broken and why.
Nat remains inspired by the belief that anything is possible, and has chosen to dedicate his life to productively challenging the conventional limits of the status quo. He takes an approach that is hands-on, data-driven, and follows a rigorous process to break constraints. He always delivers results–a model Stroud follows. Nat’s curiosity, determination, and passion extends beyond his work to every corner of his life. He enjoys spending time with his family, and learns a great deal from his children, who are not bound by the same pre-conceived notions and experiences that constrain many adults. Nat, his wife, and four children reside in Marblehead, Massachusetts, by the ocean, a symbol of infinite possibility that inspires him.
Nat has a Masters of Engineering from Oxford University and studied design, manufacturing and management at Cambridge University, in addition to executive education coursework in Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management program.
Want to connect with Nat? Find him on LinkedIn, or send him an email.
Discover the Book — Stop Guessing
Bad problem solving costs individuals and society incalculable amounts of time, money, and sanity. Great problem-solvers, however, are armed with a set of behaviors, not just a methodical approach, that allows them to avoid guessing. They consistently solve hard problems to root cause in a way that can seem magical to most people. In this book, Nat Greene—who’s been solving hard problems professionally for over twenty years—shares nine behaviors anyone can adopt to find solutions to even the most seemingly intractable problems.
The problem with most problem solving, Greene says, is that it’s not problem solving at all: it’s guessing. We have an idea of what might work and we try it out. If that doesn’t work, we try something else. And so on. It’s inefficient at best, and with really hard problems there are simply too many variables for guessing to work. Greene shows you how to adopt the behaviors great problem solvers use to arrive at solutions efficiently—without guessing. He illustrates them with examples ranging from everyday issues like fixing a malfunctioning garage door to stopping frequent breakdowns at a chemical plant (saving millions of dollars) to addressing the scourge of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. So stop guessing and start solving today!
Intrigued? Visit the book site, add it to your Goodreads shelf, or buy a copy on Amazon.
What People Are Saying
“It’s a great book for both advanced and novice problem solvers – all you need is a curious mind and a desire to get dramatically better at solving the toughest problems around you, including those that many organizations have accepted to be unsolvable.”
— Pat Sullivan, 5-star Amazon review
“This book can teach you how to pick the right approach and solve hard problems. It’s not a big book. It doesn’t take a long time to get through it. Without a doubt though, if you apply the tools in this book you will become a better problem solver.”
— R. McConaughy, 5-star Amazon review
“Problem solving methodologies abound in the marketplace, but all of them will fail if not approached with the right behaviors. That is where this book focuses. It is an easy read with each of the 9 behaviors clearly defined and explained. The author does a great job of illustrating them with real examples that bring the behaviors to light.”
— Charles Milner, 5-star Amazon review
Learn More
Visit StopGuessingBook.com to learn more about great problem-solving, watch the book trailer, and read some of Nat’s recent guest articles. While there, you can also take this online quiz to learn your greatest problem-solving strengths.
Elizabeth Johnson loves the color yellow, strong {black} coffee, editing, and exploring the mountains in rural Wyoming and Utah, where she and her husband serve as church planters. In her free time, she enjoys learning new things, hand-lettering and acrylic painting, and gaming with her husband.