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ou get paid to solve problems. Andthese days problems come thicker

and faster than ever: sustaining thestock price, deciding about layoffs,keeping the troops motivated, manag-ing capital risk, trying to focus on abrighter future. How do you radiate suf-ficient confidence and authority withoutsounding smug or unaware? How doyou paint the picture of an optimisticfuture without glossing over the veryreal pain of the present?

Most managers embody one of six lead-ership styles, says Christopher Hoenig,author of The Problem Solving Journey:Your Guide to Making Decisions andGetting Results. It’s a wise manager thatknows how she comes across to heremployees. Indeed, the essence of lead-ership is communicating a vision and apurpose for action. The rest is, in fact,problem solving.

Morgan D. Jones, author of TheThinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Tech-niques for Problem Solving, argues thatthe essence of successful problem solv-ing is to be willing to consider real alter-natives. If you’re too locked into a wayof thinking or a communication style,you may not be able to open up enoughto consider alternatives, and your prob-lem-solving skills will suffer accord-ingly. Jones, who is also a former CIAanalyst, says, “To solve problems…wemust learn how to identify and break outof restrictive mindsets and give full,serious consideration to alternativesolutions. We must learn how to dealwith the compulsions of the humanmind that, by defeating objective analy-sis, close the mind to alternatives. Fail-ure to consider alternatives fully is themost common cause of flawed orincomplete analysis.”

Y Hoenig identifies six types of problemsolvers; the secret to good problemsolving, then, is to know the weak-nesses of your own style and to fightagainst them by cultivating alternateideas and viewpoints. The types follow:

The Innovator blazes a new trail intothe unknown; the Discoverer knowsthe territory better than anyone else As Hoenig says, “Innovators view theworld in a special way. They see poten-tial where others see only pain. Theyenvision the mountain top, even whenthey’re in the valley.” The challenge forthe Innovator is to make real and practi-cal those tempting visions.

Similarly, the work of a Discoverer isfound in that uncertain new terrain.Hoenig says, “Knowing a territory—the work of a Discoverer—meansacquiring the right knowledge aboutthe critical elements of the environmentyou solve problems in. Discoverers askthe best possible questions and gettimely information about their terrain.”But they also need to keep in mind thatnot everyone shares their passion forthe quest. Most people would ratherstay in familiar territory than riskbreaking new ground.

Former Visa International presidentDee Hock is perhaps the quintessentialInnovator. Where others saw an ever-mounting tide of bad debts in the creditcard industry of the late 1960s, Hocksaw an opportunity for collectiveaction. Hock communicated a simplevision of a new order: a universal cur-rency managed collectively. But thispainfully shy man communicatedlargely by listening to others and enlist-ing them in his vision by incorporatingtheir ideas into his own.

The result, after an enormous amount ofstruggle, was Visa, which has grown by10,000% and now covers the globe andhas 500 million clients.

If you’re an Innovator, you need to incor-porate other visions into your own—much as Hock did. Work these visionstogether into a story that communicateswhere you’re headed, and you’ll be onthe way to achieving the kind of commu-nicative power that Hock showed.

If you’re a Discoverer, you’ll need tobalance your passion for knowledgewith a concomitant concern for the well-being of your troops. In large part, that’sa matter of knowing their strengths andweaknesses as well as your own.

Also, don’t let your enthusiasm carryyou away into forgetting the importanceof having a thoroughgoing plan. Curbyour impatience and make sure youhear from more than one expert aboutthe road ahead.

The Communicator creates trusting relationshipsHoenig says, “Communicators knowhow to build, nurture, and draw suste-nance from the essential fabric ofhuman relationships. Some relation-ships are transitory—making quickexchanges with strangers or crossingpaths infrequently with acquaintances.But long-term problem solving requiresbuilding deep, rich relationships.” Thisrelationship building is what Communi-cators excel at. They can forget that allthe relationship building in the worldwon’t actually build a house—or a com-pany. You also need a plan.

The challenge, if you’re a Communica-tor, is not to forget that process andproduct are as important as the team. Informing your solutions, bring in the tal-ents of process- and product-orientedpeople so the goals are not forgotten.

The Playmaker makes things happenHoenig says, “A problem solver needsto get oriented to the choices, prioritizeand select what to work on, plan and ini-tiate action on the most urgent opportu-

Copyright © 2002 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Are You Getting the Best Solutionsfor Your Problems?

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your communicationstyle and be flexible enough to consider real alternatives.

Section Head, continuedCOMMUNICATION SKILLS BY NICK MORGAN

H A R VA R D M A N A G E M E N T C O M M U N I C AT I O N L E T T E R J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 2

nities, and guide a team through thestages of resolution. This is the realm ofthe Playmaker.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s suc-cess with America’s Promise, a not-for-profit organization launched with theU.S. Chamber of Commerce to mentoryoung people in summer jobs, showsthe skills of a Playmaker. Powellinspires, cajoles, prods, and arm twistshis way through corporate America onbehalf of today’s youth.

Playmakers tend to value your peoplefor what they do, not for who they are.Playmakers are constantly trying tomake the strategy work. They maybecome so busy using people that theymay not notice that people need atten-tion, too. Playmakers in the middle of acommunications crisis over a fallingstock price and messy layoffs, for exam-ple, should take time along the way tocelebrate small victories with the troopsthat remain—or risk losing their loyalty.

The Creator designs optimal solutions Says Hoenig, “The bigger and tougherand more competitive your problem is,the more challenging it is to design,build, and evolve solutions that will holdtogether under pressure and over time.This job is the province of the Creator.”

John Sawhill was a university president,a partner in a global consulting firm,and a senior cabinet official before hebecame the head of The Nature Conser-vancy. On his watch, the nonprofit orga-nization realized that buying land tosave it from development was not work-ing, because the larger ecosystems werestill suffering. And so, under Sawhill,The Nature Conservancy began to focuson the “Last Great Places,” workingwith many organizations to managewhole ecosystems.

That’s how a Creator approaches herwork: taking stock of what assets andresources she possesses, and figuringout how best to deploy them. It’s acomplicated and challenging task, onethat requires the ability to not get lost

in the day-to-day issues that threaten tokill forward momentum. If you’re aCreator, your communication chal-lenge is to help your employees stayfocused on that larger picture, eventhough you may love getting yourhands dirty in the design of the details.Your understanding of the vision is

implicit, but you need to make itexplicit in order to keep others moti-vated. You also need to understand thatdesigning a solution is not the samething as achieving it; for that you needthe skills of a Performer.

The Performer delivers practical results“Performers are the hard-bitten, practi-cal characters who are always willing toget their hands dirty to make things hap-pen,” says Hoenig.

Isabelle Autissier is a Frenchwomanwho has triumphed in the VendéeGlobe, a solo nonstop sailing racearound the world. As Hoenig says, “Oneof the more extraordinary aspects of theexecution skills of sailors like Autissieris their ability to find simple, effectiveresolutions to the problems they facealong the way.… They are experts atdreaming up repair schemes that areviable enough to allow them to com-plete the race.”

The Performer is the leader who canreact on the fly, figuring out how to keepthe team functioning or rejuvenate theIT system that seems hopeless to every-one else. And it’s in that ability to keepthings moving that the communicationstrengths and weaknesses of the Per-former are to be found.

The urgency of the task is always infront of the Performer, and he cansometimes forget the communityaround him. Moreover, while it is sec-ond nature to the Performer to under-

stand how to keep driving toward theend result, he will at times forget thatothers need to be reminded of the bigpicture. Performers need to remindthemselves to take time to repair theteam with words of encouragement andhealing when a particularly roughpatch has been got through.

So which are you? An Innovator whocan see a future most cannot—andneeds to remember to focus on the hereand now? A Discoverer whose curiosityabout the road ahead can lead you topush your troops hard—sometimes toohard? A Communicator whose ability tofoster human connections needs to beleavened with a practical sense of focuson the task at hand? A Playmaker whosees how to put it all together, andsometimes needs to slow down and tendto the needs of his team? A Creatorwhose ability to find new solutionsamidst the challenges of the momentsometimes overpowers her futurevision? Or a Performer, who gets the jobdone, sometimes to his own personalcost and to those around him?

Jones says, “We settle for partial solu-tions because our minds simply can’tdigest or cope with all of the intricaciesof complex problems. We thus tend tooversimplify, hopping from one prob-lem to another like jittery butterflies,alighting briefly and only on those ele-ments we can comprehend and articu-late.” Sometimes the only way to fightthis tendency is to force yourself tospeak through your weaknesses, notyour strengths. ❑

—Nick Morgan can be reached atnmorgan@hbsp.harvard.edu

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The Best Solutions, continued

The Problem Solving Journey: Your Guide toMaking Decisions and Getting Results

by Christopher Hoenig 2000 � Perseus

The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving

by Morgan D. Jones 1998 � Three Rivers Press

FURTHER READING

“Failure to consider alternativesis the most common cause of

flawed or incomplete analysis.”