When the flight gets delayed for hours on end, and you might miss your connection, there are two places to turn:
Problem identifying or solution finding.
Problem identifying is backward facing. It’s all about reflecting on what happened, and where things went wrong. “The weather was bad.” “The customer service rep was rude.”
Solution finding is a different art. It’s forward looking and all about what could be. “Perhaps we could catch this flight.” “We could take our vacation here if we miss the connection.”
Seeing solutions is hard because it forces you to be flexible. It forces you to change and adapt constantly. Problem identification is a passive act of insisting things stay the way they should be. Solution finding is the active work of imagining something new. See more solutions.