Imagine the growth that would happen if you focused on taking the things that hurt your business and turned them into things that add value.
Too often we focus on problems and fail to see opportunities. When you only focus on what’s wrong, you fail to see solutions. A problem can either be seen as a nuisance to overcome or the opportunity for reinvention. The key to any successful business is being able to transform problems from liabilities into assets. The brands that rise to the top use problems as leverage for innovation.
“Many [companies] respond to challenges literally. When something happens in the external environment their default position is to continue the current way of doing things, but just ratchet the resources up or down as conditions change. As such, they treat their problems as temporary issues that need to be solved in order to get back to business as usual.
But [companies] must see problems in a different light — as a signal from the environment that it’s time for fresh thinking. For them it’s not just a matter of resolving the immediate issue, but using the problem to reassess the current way of doing business, to identify new customer needs, and to innovate. In this way, problems can open new worlds.” – Ron Ashkenas, Harvard Business Review.
Problems are the door to new industries, disrupting old ones, and creating breakthrough products.
A fresh perspective is required to discover and attract creative solutions. If you change your perspective and begin to see problems as assets, you will see that opportunity is everywhere.
Tina Seelig, a Stanford Engineering Professor and author of Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head And Into the World, outlines three techniques for turning problems into assets and finding innovative solutions.
-Reframe the question to see it from new angles. Each new question opens up the opportunity to create new ideas.
-Brainstorm ridiculous ideas to disengage from prior assumptions, then figure out how they can become good ideas. These ridiculous ideas can pave the way to something unique and brilliant.
-Challenge perceived assumptions by asking what would happen if you do the opposite.
At Ashcraft Design we have refined a design process that allows us to look at all avenues for innovation and turn liabilities into an assets. We approach design through strategy tied to consumer and market research and reframe problems to create innovative solutions. Ashcraft Design creates the solutions that give businesses the edge they need to propel themselves to the top of their respective markets, drive sales, and create breakthrough products.
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