148. Are You Solving the Right Business Problems? (CEO Summer School)
Are you solving the right problems in your design business? Every day brings new challenges, from client communications eating up your inbox time to profitability concerns that keep you awake at night. But there’s a key difference between solving symptoms and addressing the root causes that will help your business thrive in the long run.
In this episode, I’m sharing truth number six from my CEO Summer School series: effective solutions start with solving the right problems. This principle has transformed the way I approach challenges in my own business and has been a game-changer for the designers I coach. When you find yourself working more hours than you’d like or facing the same obstacles over and over, it’s often because you’re treating the symptoms, not the source of the issue.
Through examples from the design industry, I’ll show you how to dig deeper and identify what’s really going on beneath the surface. You’ll learn why your brain gravitates toward quick fixes, how to spot the difference between avoiding discomfort and taking the easiest path, and how to pinpoint the true problem. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a strategy for creating lasting solutions that don’t just put a band-aid on the issue, but fix it for good.
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What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why solving surface-level symptoms keeps you stuck in cycles of the same problems.
How reactivity and avoidance prevent you from seeing the real issues in your business.
The difference between strategic procrastination and harmful avoidance.
What "going upstream" means when diagnosing business challenges.
How to balance intuition with factual evidence when identifying problems.
Why focusing on uncontrollable factors drains your resources.
The implementation cycle that turns hypotheses into lasting solutions.
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140. Create Your Vision and Pursue it Boldly (CEO Summer School)
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 148. This is another installment in the What I Know for Sure, CEO Summer School series. We're diving into truth number six today, and it's such an important one to consider when you're bumping up against challenges or encountering obstacles in your interior design business. Whether that is in the day-to-day running of the business or on a larger scale with new initiatives and goals you're going after.
This episode is for you if you want to learn to navigate roadblocks with more ease and more clarity so that the solutions are targeted and complete, instead of spinning your wheels and leaking resources.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having an incredible day, whatever day you're listening to this. I'm excited to be back here with a new CEO Summer School series episode. Before we dive in, I want to say a quick thank you to those of you who've left new ratings and reviews on the podcast. Thank you so, so much. This really helps me spread the word about the show.
I want to give a shout-out to past client, Cynthia, from Brickell Interiors. She left a review saying, "Focus on what matters." And she said, "Clearly Desi has walked in my shoes, as every time I listen to her podcast, I feel as if she's gotten into my head. I was blessed to be able to participate in her Out of Overwhelm program, which has been a game-changer for me and my studio. Thanks, Desi, for helping me overcome the barriers that were getting in the way of building a business that I love."
You're so welcome, Cynthia, and it's so nice to hear from you. And thank you for leaving that review. I'll be reading some more new ones in the future. If you haven't taken a moment to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to this podcast, I encourage you to do so. It is an excellent way to help other designers in our industry get the support they need on the topics that this show covers and really aren't found elsewhere.
Now I want to dive into truth number six that I'm sharing in the What I Know for Sure CEO Summer School series. And this truth, I've been really looking forward to sharing more on. It's something that I see come up so often in my coaching sessions with clients and also in my business too. So, here it is, truth number six: effective solutions start with solving the right problems.
Now, why is this truth so important? Well, as a design business owner, you are a professional problem solver. Not just on the job site and in your projects and working with clients, but in your business. Anytime you want to move beyond where your business is currently at, essentially, you're signing up for a new set of problems.
Now, that in and of itself is not a problem, right? We don't want to make the problems a problem. We don't need to add extra hard onto our lives. And I also want to say, when I say a problem, I don't always mean it as some huge, horrible thing that you've got to overcome. It's just some situation or outcome that you want to improve or move beyond. That's all. So we're talking about an issue, a challenge, an obstacle. Lots of different ways to describe what we're talking about today.
Essentially, you have a puzzle that you're putting together that is your business vision, and this is the next step in finding those pieces and putting them together in a way that makes sense for you. And if you haven't listened to episode 140 of CEO Summer School, that's about pursuing your vision boldly. I highly recommend you go check that out to think about what is that puzzle you're putting together.
Now, as we think about what we want to create for ourselves, for our lives, for our business, the people that we want to impact through our design business, there are going to be challenges that come along the way. And of course, we as a business owner are signing up to overcome them.
So this could be a problem, like you want to increase your profits to pay yourself more or invest in the business. Maybe you want to make a new hire, you want to invest in a website or a copywriter. Or maybe it's something like you want to reduce your working hours to have more time for yourself or your family, and have that flexibility that was the original reason you started this business for in the first place.
Or maybe it's you want to refine the projects you're saying yes or no to. Or there's friction happening in your processes that's really costing you time and money. So the way I'm describing this kind of is like, you've got a goal, right? But a goal is just a problem to solve. So there's outcomes that you want to create, and there's going to be things that are going to get in your way, whether that's internally or externally, and it's your job as the CEO to overcome them to get more of what you want.
And as we think about going about solving these problems, achieving these goals, if I were to ask you, "So, hey, do you want to solve this in the easiest way possible, or do you want to take the hard road?" Or do you want to deal with this once and be done with it? Or do you want to just keep circling the drain and revisiting the challenge over and over? I think I know what you'd say. Sign me up for the easiest way, and let's get this done and over with.
And that's really what I want to talk about with today's truth around solving the right problem. That is what it takes to choose the easiest option. Making sure, you know, to the extent that is possible, that you are solving the right problem is going to create the best outcomes created through your solutions that you come up with when you are very clear on what the actual problem is that you're going to work through.
At this point, you might be calling to mind some issues you're working through and thinking, "Yep, this is a problem in my business," or "I have this big goal and I know that I'm going to have to overcome or work on implementing these things in order to get there."
So sometimes we know exactly what that problem is. And even if you're thinking, "Yep, I know exactly what it is that I need to do," I really encourage you to still keep listening because it is so helpful to become even clearer in the path forward, to getting to that simplest, most streamlined solution.
And I'll also say it can be surprisingly easy to misdiagnose what's actually going on. So if you're thinking, "Yeah, I already know what it is I'm trying to solve for," okay, that's great, but keep listening. And also, this episode is very much for you for those of you who have those sticky problems, those whack-a-mole issues or challenges that keep cycling through, even though you think you've addressed them or you've tried to solve for them, but they still keep popping up.
And this could also even be if you know you have this sense of, something is off, but I'm not sure where to start, or it just feels kind of overwhelming or confusing to help sift through the muck and know what's actually going on. That is why it's so important to pinpoint the actual source of the problem, because there can be a lot of different factors at play or multiple pieces of the solution that you need to come at from different angles. But when you pinpoint the actual source of the problem, it's so much easier to see how to solve for it.
And even if that solution isn't easy, it will be clearer. And clearer is always easier. A kind of random example that just popped into my head is even asking for directions. So when I say clearer is easier, I'm thinking about if you were to ask me for directions on getting somewhere versus my husband. I would probably tell you how to get there in a very roundabout way. I'd have some random landmarks that I happen to remember when I go to this particular place, and I probably wouldn't be very specific about the exact spots you turn. And that is why I rely heavily on GPS, even when I kind of know where I'm going.
But if you were to ask my husband, he has like an entire mental map and will be able to tell you street names, the number of, you know, stops that you have to make. It'll be so specific in the directions that he gives you. Now, you might like me and all, but you definitely want to go to my husband for those directions. And it's the same thing with identifying and pinpointing the actual source of the problem. You want to know what it is because clearer is easier.
And clearer also means you'll be able to see more possible solutions. If the problem is kind of muddled and you're not quite sure what it is or where to start, there's probably going to be one way you're going to sort of start to hammer away at it. But if you're able to get that clarity, you'll see, oh, okay, this is the outcome I'm trying to achieve. This is what's actually going on. I could do it from this way. I could do it from that way. Maybe that person could help me. And then you can select the path that really is best for you.
I want to give you some ways to see how you might be in your own way or not seeing things clearly in a little bit, but I want to first give you some examples about how this can play out so you can start to see through the lens of your own examples or what you're working through in your business, how this could apply.
So the first example I'll give you, and this is one that a lot of people come to me with to help them solve for, is you're working more hours than you want to be working. Maybe that's just total hours, maybe it's that you're working nights and weekends. Anyways, you're working more than you want. And one of the things you notice is that you are spending so much time in your inbox.
Now, at first glance, you look at this and you're like, "I'm just in my inbox too much, and so I am going to figure out this new way of sorting through all these messages because I spend too much time on my email." Okay. So we could look at that and think, yep, I'm spending too much time working, and I do spend a lot of time in my email, and sorting it could be a solution. However, that might be the band-aid solution, not when you put the cast on. Let me explain.
The root issue might not be that you don't have the proper sorting system. Eventually, that might be part of it, but the root cause of this could be that the way you communicate is very much like hot potato style of like you're just responding and kind of going from the hip and you don't give clear instructions or ask for exactly what you want or deliver the information in a concise way that people can easily respond to. What you actually need to solve for is the problem of how you're communicating in the first place.
A great episode to listen to if this is resonating is episode 54, and I talk about 50% less email. It's how to cut your email in half. Another example might be that you haven't established clear communication guidelines and channels with your clients. So yes, a sorting method might be helpful, but if you haven't established those guidelines up front, you're still going to then be dealing with all the things to sort.
Or maybe it's even you haven't developed the skill of focus. So it's not even that the volume of email is too high. It's that when you're in your inbox, you're futzing around with ten other things instead of just responding to the messages. So it takes way longer than it needs to. Do you see where I'm getting here? You can have the sorting method if it's helpful, but if you don't address the root issue, then you're not going to get the most effective outcome. That sorting method isn't going to do all that it could do for you.
Let me give you one other example before we move on, and I know this is another one that a lot of people come to me with. You want to increase your profitability. That's wonderful. And maybe what you're doing to do that is you're spending all of this time fretting over your fee structure, creating the new fee structure, updating your contracts, all the things that impacts. Okay, so we could definitely look at how you're billing for your time.
And no amount of finagling is going to make up for improper estimates of what it takes to deliver the project because you haven't been tracking your time, or maybe it's that you don't bill for all of your time if you're hourly, or you're not willing to have the conversation if you're flat fee around additional scope because you are people-pleasing or telling yourself, "Oh, it won't be that much time, I can just do it."
Do you see where I'm getting here? I want you to really start thinking of what are your examples and where are you not going deep enough in looking for that clarity to really understand what the problem is that you're solving for.
Like I said, this is something that I help my clients with so much. It's really where we get in our own way, where we're too in it to see clearly. And I want to talk about some of the ways that prevent us from pinpointing actual issues, the root causes of whatever is going on. Like I said, this is where coaching can be so helpful. One of the things I like to say is you can't read the label from inside the bottle. I think that's true. It's why, you know, I love to have somebody to help give me outside perspective. But I also want to be able to give you some ways in this podcast episode to help examine the challenges and obstacles that you want to overcome on the way to your goals and improvements in your business to really give you some legs to help to run with this.
I think one of the ways, of course, this happens really is around reactivity. Our brain's just going to jump to conclusions on what the problem is and what we think is the solution. And our brain's wired to be efficient and take the path of least resistance. So it's going to glom on to maybe the last thing that you heard on a podcast, or maybe what's been swirling in your insecurities or your anxieties, or it might default to what you've always done. What's that saying? If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? So this is a big one. Reactivity will get in the way of clarity. So I encourage you to take a pause.
Now the other one that really gets in the way of understanding what it is that you need to solve for is avoidance. Ooh, avoidance. Causes so many issues in our business. And when we bump up against a challenge or we know we're going to have to overcome something on the way to the next goal, our brain is going to probably default to telling us this is hard, it's going to take too much time, I can't do this, all the things, right? And then the brain's going to want to pick the easiest and most comfortable option.
If you remember, I used the phrase path of least resistance earlier. That is not the same as picking the easiest thing. Avoiding hard work, the work that is necessary that you know is going to create the solution you want is very different than choosing the path of least resistance. Path of least resistance is helping you create solutions in the simplest, most effective, easiest ways, but it is very, very different from trying to skirt an issue or get around something without doing what needs to be done.
And this is going to look and sound different for each and every one of you. I think a great thing for you to just noodle on over the week is notice what is the difference between avoiding what I know needs to be done and hoping there's like some false solution where I get the result without doing the work versus, "Okay, I know what needs to happen here. How can I make this simple and easy for myself?" Right? One is creating an issue, one is supporting yourself.
This is where you come up a lot with those band-aid solutions instead of putting the cast on and actually solving for a broken bone. I will say, this is a little side note, but sometimes strategic procrastination can be useful. And that's probably something I should do an entire episode on. Now that's just kind of like deciding to put things off, but if you are going to strategically procrastinate, which you could call avoid, make sure you're clear with yourself on how and when you're going to revisit the topic.
Basically, what I want you to hear here is solving from urgency or avoidance is never useful, okay? So if you notice either of those things when you're trying to overcome something in your business, take a pause. And we're going to also then look at, like, what do you do to find that root issue. But I want to cover a few more things that get in the way of clarity.
The other one is trying to avoid an inside job. I talked a lot about this in episode 144, which was truth number four in the CEO Summer School series, and it was Scaling is an Inside Job. So, solving for an emotion that you're experiencing, sometimes what we do as business owners, we're just like trying to throw a bunch of things, like that we're doing or people or solutions at ourselves or the business to fix the problem, and what's actually happening is something internal that needs to be addressed, and maybe you still go do those things or lean on that support, but it cannot really be effective or permanent unless you deal with what's going on inside of you.
That could be the mindset piece, it could be increasing your emotional capacity and tolerance for discomfort. That's going to really be necessary to have the external solutions that you're employing be as effective as possible. A quick example of this could be, you know, you've got a really tight contract and feel solid on that, but then you don't follow it, right? So you can have the best contract in the world, cover all the different clauses, and think through all the what-ifs. And if you don't uphold your contract because you're uncomfortable in some way, upholding it, it's not going to serve you.
Piggybacking on the whole feelings and emotions thing is the another one that gets in your way is really relying solely on feelings without fact-checking. I definitely believe that there's a place for intuition, checking your gut, that internal knowing in making decisions in your business. And I also think it's really helpful to balance that, especially depending on the situation, to balance it with a closer inspection and bringing in some factual evidence, because often these instinctual feelings that we can kind of mistake for intuition are actually coming from unhelpful mindsets and outdated identities.
So we need to sort through what is a feeling that is, quote unquote, “true,” and we want to follow versus just a feeling that's coming from a really well-practiced, well-rehearsed mindset. So I think it's important to say, like, yes, listen to your own internal knowing and also listen to what your business is telling you through your tracking, your data, your numbers.
The last thing that I want to call out here, when it comes to blocking you from seeing what the true problem is that you need to solve for, is when you start focusing on solving for the uncontrollable. This could look like blaming others or blaming outside circumstances for results that you have or engaging in over-responsibility for people, kind of trying to move the puppet strings to again, help you avoid something uncomfortable or outcomes that you don't want to have happen. When in reality, we cannot control everything.
I did an episode on that. It was 134 on over-responsibility. If that's striking a chord, go back and listen to that one. But both blaming and over-responsibility, they really create this sense of false control and sometimes it's coming from avoidance too because, you know, if it's someone else's fault that you have this issue or there's a circumstance you feel you can't change, then in some ways, you can kind of give yourself this kind of unhelpful permission to sit back and go, "Well, I can't do anything about it." Or you like totally overcorrect and you think you can control every last thing in the universe, and that is very exhausting.
So let's make this a productive problem. Choose to focus your attention on what you can do, what you can control, and what you can take responsibility for. And when you start to look at the problem through those three lenses, you're going to start to see what's actually going on.
I've started to talk a little bit already about how do you identify what that root issue is. How do you know what the right problem is to solve? But I want to go into that even more here. I think the very first thing I'll just say is, make sure it's actually a problem that you need to solve right now. Is this causing an issue that I need to address, and is it one that needs to be addressed right now? If the answer is no, put it low on the list, and you can come back to it if you want to assess it.
But if the answer is yes, don't just dive into the doing. Remember that reactivity, pause, and take a closer look. This is going to save you so much time, so much money, and energy to identify what's actually going on.
We're in August now as I'm recording this, and we're headed out on a trip very soon for our family. And in the past, some of the times we've gone to Colorado, my husband has a lot of family there. And as I was thinking through this idea of solving the right problems, I was considering all those beautiful hikes through Rocky Mountain National Park and some of the streams that you walk past. And I thought about how in solving for the right problems, it's really about going far enough upstream.
If you follow that stream, you want to look at where does it originate. It's the same thing when you're looking at issues in the business. You want to know where does the problem originate? Or you could even look at it as a stream flowing down. Where is there a big rock preventing you from continuing moving the water downward? You can start to look at where are there things blocking you, where are the things that are breaking down? And what's the original source?
I'll give you an example here. Maybe you're spending more time on discovery calls with clients who are just not your ideal client. And you want to look at, all right, so I want to eliminate this time, but why is it happening in the first place? Maybe the client filter you create through having that inquiry form on your website isn't tight enough to help people self-select out of the process. Or maybe it just doesn't give you enough information so that when the inquiry comes through, you don't have enough on what the project is, the budget, etc, to really help sort through those inquiries and decide who you want to talk to.
Or maybe it is actually that you're using words on your website that were perfect for speaking to the client you used to serve three years ago, but do not reflect what you do now, what the work is that your firm's taking on, and it is not in line with where you're headed. Or maybe it's in the marketing part of your stream, and it's that you haven't been creating enough new relationships that are in alignment with your current goals. And that's really where you need to put your focus.
Get really clear, where does the stream or the problem originate? Or where is that big boulder or big log that's fallen into the stream blocking you? Know what you're aiming at. I'll also say that sometimes you will not feel certain that you have identified the right problem. And this is not a reason to stall or spin or not take action.
You're going to look at it with some different angles. You're going to look at what's really going on here for you and you're going to have to take your best guess. You're going to create a hypothesis, you're going to gather whatever information you need to have, and then you have to do. You cannot just think your way to an answer. So for those of you who tend to get into overthinking cycles, do not get stuck there.
Enter the implementation cycle. That's something I've talked about on episodes before. I don't think I've done one specifically on it, but it's come up. But where you're making decisions, you're taking actions, you're gathering information from the action you take, and from that, you make a new decision and you keep on going.
So as we start to wrap up, I want you to think about what is something you've been stuck on? What information do you need to look at this from all the angles? What emotional processing do you need to do to clear the way so you can see the challenge that's behind those muddled feelings? What I'm inviting you to do is take a walk along the path of that stream and look for where you're getting stuck. Where does the problem originate from? And what is it that you really need to solve for?
Because when you are solving for the right problems, you're going to create long-lasting change. And those are outcomes that you're going to build upon for years and years. And the solutions that you then decide to employ are going to feel more aligned with how you like to work, what you do best, and it's going to create more ease and less frustration from less spinning or bumping up things that just aren't working so that you can more effectively use your resources of time, money, energy, and team.
Take this truth and run with it. Effective solutions come from solving the right problem. Because what I want you to remember here is you're not really just trying to solve a problem to solve the problem. The problem is not the endgame. What you want to do is create a solution that blooms into the outcome or result that you want to create in your business. So take the time and get clear on what really needs to be done, and then proceed.
For all of you who are following along with CEO Summer School, make sure to check your email for a few prompts that's going to help you apply today's episode. And of course, if you're not signed up, it's not too late. You can go to desicreswell.com/resources and you'll find the CEO Summer School page, sign up there. You can also sign up for Monday Mindset, which is my Monday newsletter, which if you love the podcast, you will absolutely love getting Monday Mindset. It's a great way to start the week. It's also how you can stay up to date on all the different ways that I can help you or things that are happening in my world.
I'm going to be back next week with a brand new episode, and I have an interview to share with you. I have Katie Kath here, the creative director and CEO at J Kath Design Build, and we're going to be diving into hiring, leadership, and growing her multifaceted firm, which includes not just design and remodeling, but also a custom cabinet shop. Make sure you're subscribed so you do not miss that. It's going to be good, and I've got some other interviews coming up too that you're going to want to listen to. Until we talk next Wednesday, I am wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
This episode is for you if you want to learn to navigate roadblocks with more ease and more clarity so that the solutions are targeted and complete, instead of spinning your wheels and leaking resources.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having an incredible day, whatever day you're listening to this. I'm excited to be back here with a new CEO Summer School series episode. Before we dive in, I want to say a quick thank you to those of you who've left new ratings and reviews on the podcast. Thank you so, so much. This really helps me spread the word about the show.
I want to give a shout-out to past client, Cynthia, from Brickell Interiors. She left a review saying, "Focus on what matters." And she said, "Clearly Desi has walked in my shoes, as every time I listen to her podcast, I feel as if she's gotten into my head. I was blessed to be able to participate in her Out of Overwhelm program, which has been a game-changer for me and my studio. Thanks, Desi, for helping me overcome the barriers that were getting in the way of building a business that I love."
You're so welcome, Cynthia, and it's so nice to hear from you. And thank you for leaving that review. I'll be reading some more new ones in the future. If you haven't taken a moment to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to this podcast, I encourage you to do so. It is an excellent way to help other designers in our industry get the support they need on the topics that this show covers and really aren't found elsewhere.
Now I want to dive into truth number six that I'm sharing in the What I Know for Sure CEO Summer School series. And this truth, I've been really looking forward to sharing more on. It's something that I see come up so often in my coaching sessions with clients and also in my business too. So, here it is, truth number six: effective solutions start with solving the right problems.
Now, why is this truth so important? Well, as a design business owner, you are a professional problem solver. Not just on the job site and in your projects and working with clients, but in your business. Anytime you want to move beyond where your business is currently at, essentially, you're signing up for a new set of problems.
Now, that in and of itself is not a problem, right? We don't want to make the problems a problem. We don't need to add extra hard onto our lives. And I also want to say, when I say a problem, I don't always mean it as some huge, horrible thing that you've got to overcome. It's just some situation or outcome that you want to improve or move beyond. That's all. So we're talking about an issue, a challenge, an obstacle. Lots of different ways to describe what we're talking about today.
Essentially, you have a puzzle that you're putting together that is your business vision, and this is the next step in finding those pieces and putting them together in a way that makes sense for you. And if you haven't listened to episode 140 of CEO Summer School, that's about pursuing your vision boldly. I highly recommend you go check that out to think about what is that puzzle you're putting together.
Now, as we think about what we want to create for ourselves, for our lives, for our business, the people that we want to impact through our design business, there are going to be challenges that come along the way. And of course, we as a business owner are signing up to overcome them.
So this could be a problem, like you want to increase your profits to pay yourself more or invest in the business. Maybe you want to make a new hire, you want to invest in a website or a copywriter. Or maybe it's something like you want to reduce your working hours to have more time for yourself or your family, and have that flexibility that was the original reason you started this business for in the first place.
Or maybe it's you want to refine the projects you're saying yes or no to. Or there's friction happening in your processes that's really costing you time and money. So the way I'm describing this kind of is like, you've got a goal, right? But a goal is just a problem to solve. So there's outcomes that you want to create, and there's going to be things that are going to get in your way, whether that's internally or externally, and it's your job as the CEO to overcome them to get more of what you want.
And as we think about going about solving these problems, achieving these goals, if I were to ask you, "So, hey, do you want to solve this in the easiest way possible, or do you want to take the hard road?" Or do you want to deal with this once and be done with it? Or do you want to just keep circling the drain and revisiting the challenge over and over? I think I know what you'd say. Sign me up for the easiest way, and let's get this done and over with.
And that's really what I want to talk about with today's truth around solving the right problem. That is what it takes to choose the easiest option. Making sure, you know, to the extent that is possible, that you are solving the right problem is going to create the best outcomes created through your solutions that you come up with when you are very clear on what the actual problem is that you're going to work through.
At this point, you might be calling to mind some issues you're working through and thinking, "Yep, this is a problem in my business," or "I have this big goal and I know that I'm going to have to overcome or work on implementing these things in order to get there."
So sometimes we know exactly what that problem is. And even if you're thinking, "Yep, I know exactly what it is that I need to do," I really encourage you to still keep listening because it is so helpful to become even clearer in the path forward, to getting to that simplest, most streamlined solution.
And I'll also say it can be surprisingly easy to misdiagnose what's actually going on. So if you're thinking, "Yeah, I already know what it is I'm trying to solve for," okay, that's great, but keep listening. And also, this episode is very much for you for those of you who have those sticky problems, those whack-a-mole issues or challenges that keep cycling through, even though you think you've addressed them or you've tried to solve for them, but they still keep popping up.
And this could also even be if you know you have this sense of, something is off, but I'm not sure where to start, or it just feels kind of overwhelming or confusing to help sift through the muck and know what's actually going on. That is why it's so important to pinpoint the actual source of the problem, because there can be a lot of different factors at play or multiple pieces of the solution that you need to come at from different angles. But when you pinpoint the actual source of the problem, it's so much easier to see how to solve for it.
And even if that solution isn't easy, it will be clearer. And clearer is always easier. A kind of random example that just popped into my head is even asking for directions. So when I say clearer is easier, I'm thinking about if you were to ask me for directions on getting somewhere versus my husband. I would probably tell you how to get there in a very roundabout way. I'd have some random landmarks that I happen to remember when I go to this particular place, and I probably wouldn't be very specific about the exact spots you turn. And that is why I rely heavily on GPS, even when I kind of know where I'm going.
But if you were to ask my husband, he has like an entire mental map and will be able to tell you street names, the number of, you know, stops that you have to make. It'll be so specific in the directions that he gives you. Now, you might like me and all, but you definitely want to go to my husband for those directions. And it's the same thing with identifying and pinpointing the actual source of the problem. You want to know what it is because clearer is easier.
And clearer also means you'll be able to see more possible solutions. If the problem is kind of muddled and you're not quite sure what it is or where to start, there's probably going to be one way you're going to sort of start to hammer away at it. But if you're able to get that clarity, you'll see, oh, okay, this is the outcome I'm trying to achieve. This is what's actually going on. I could do it from this way. I could do it from that way. Maybe that person could help me. And then you can select the path that really is best for you.
I want to give you some ways to see how you might be in your own way or not seeing things clearly in a little bit, but I want to first give you some examples about how this can play out so you can start to see through the lens of your own examples or what you're working through in your business, how this could apply.
So the first example I'll give you, and this is one that a lot of people come to me with to help them solve for, is you're working more hours than you want to be working. Maybe that's just total hours, maybe it's that you're working nights and weekends. Anyways, you're working more than you want. And one of the things you notice is that you are spending so much time in your inbox.
Now, at first glance, you look at this and you're like, "I'm just in my inbox too much, and so I am going to figure out this new way of sorting through all these messages because I spend too much time on my email." Okay. So we could look at that and think, yep, I'm spending too much time working, and I do spend a lot of time in my email, and sorting it could be a solution. However, that might be the band-aid solution, not when you put the cast on. Let me explain.
The root issue might not be that you don't have the proper sorting system. Eventually, that might be part of it, but the root cause of this could be that the way you communicate is very much like hot potato style of like you're just responding and kind of going from the hip and you don't give clear instructions or ask for exactly what you want or deliver the information in a concise way that people can easily respond to. What you actually need to solve for is the problem of how you're communicating in the first place.
A great episode to listen to if this is resonating is episode 54, and I talk about 50% less email. It's how to cut your email in half. Another example might be that you haven't established clear communication guidelines and channels with your clients. So yes, a sorting method might be helpful, but if you haven't established those guidelines up front, you're still going to then be dealing with all the things to sort.
Or maybe it's even you haven't developed the skill of focus. So it's not even that the volume of email is too high. It's that when you're in your inbox, you're futzing around with ten other things instead of just responding to the messages. So it takes way longer than it needs to. Do you see where I'm getting here? You can have the sorting method if it's helpful, but if you don't address the root issue, then you're not going to get the most effective outcome. That sorting method isn't going to do all that it could do for you.
Let me give you one other example before we move on, and I know this is another one that a lot of people come to me with. You want to increase your profitability. That's wonderful. And maybe what you're doing to do that is you're spending all of this time fretting over your fee structure, creating the new fee structure, updating your contracts, all the things that impacts. Okay, so we could definitely look at how you're billing for your time.
And no amount of finagling is going to make up for improper estimates of what it takes to deliver the project because you haven't been tracking your time, or maybe it's that you don't bill for all of your time if you're hourly, or you're not willing to have the conversation if you're flat fee around additional scope because you are people-pleasing or telling yourself, "Oh, it won't be that much time, I can just do it."
Do you see where I'm getting here? I want you to really start thinking of what are your examples and where are you not going deep enough in looking for that clarity to really understand what the problem is that you're solving for.
Like I said, this is something that I help my clients with so much. It's really where we get in our own way, where we're too in it to see clearly. And I want to talk about some of the ways that prevent us from pinpointing actual issues, the root causes of whatever is going on. Like I said, this is where coaching can be so helpful. One of the things I like to say is you can't read the label from inside the bottle. I think that's true. It's why, you know, I love to have somebody to help give me outside perspective. But I also want to be able to give you some ways in this podcast episode to help examine the challenges and obstacles that you want to overcome on the way to your goals and improvements in your business to really give you some legs to help to run with this.
I think one of the ways, of course, this happens really is around reactivity. Our brain's just going to jump to conclusions on what the problem is and what we think is the solution. And our brain's wired to be efficient and take the path of least resistance. So it's going to glom on to maybe the last thing that you heard on a podcast, or maybe what's been swirling in your insecurities or your anxieties, or it might default to what you've always done. What's that saying? If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? So this is a big one. Reactivity will get in the way of clarity. So I encourage you to take a pause.
Now the other one that really gets in the way of understanding what it is that you need to solve for is avoidance. Ooh, avoidance. Causes so many issues in our business. And when we bump up against a challenge or we know we're going to have to overcome something on the way to the next goal, our brain is going to probably default to telling us this is hard, it's going to take too much time, I can't do this, all the things, right? And then the brain's going to want to pick the easiest and most comfortable option.
If you remember, I used the phrase path of least resistance earlier. That is not the same as picking the easiest thing. Avoiding hard work, the work that is necessary that you know is going to create the solution you want is very different than choosing the path of least resistance. Path of least resistance is helping you create solutions in the simplest, most effective, easiest ways, but it is very, very different from trying to skirt an issue or get around something without doing what needs to be done.
And this is going to look and sound different for each and every one of you. I think a great thing for you to just noodle on over the week is notice what is the difference between avoiding what I know needs to be done and hoping there's like some false solution where I get the result without doing the work versus, "Okay, I know what needs to happen here. How can I make this simple and easy for myself?" Right? One is creating an issue, one is supporting yourself.
This is where you come up a lot with those band-aid solutions instead of putting the cast on and actually solving for a broken bone. I will say, this is a little side note, but sometimes strategic procrastination can be useful. And that's probably something I should do an entire episode on. Now that's just kind of like deciding to put things off, but if you are going to strategically procrastinate, which you could call avoid, make sure you're clear with yourself on how and when you're going to revisit the topic.
Basically, what I want you to hear here is solving from urgency or avoidance is never useful, okay? So if you notice either of those things when you're trying to overcome something in your business, take a pause. And we're going to also then look at, like, what do you do to find that root issue. But I want to cover a few more things that get in the way of clarity.
The other one is trying to avoid an inside job. I talked a lot about this in episode 144, which was truth number four in the CEO Summer School series, and it was Scaling is an Inside Job. So, solving for an emotion that you're experiencing, sometimes what we do as business owners, we're just like trying to throw a bunch of things, like that we're doing or people or solutions at ourselves or the business to fix the problem, and what's actually happening is something internal that needs to be addressed, and maybe you still go do those things or lean on that support, but it cannot really be effective or permanent unless you deal with what's going on inside of you.
That could be the mindset piece, it could be increasing your emotional capacity and tolerance for discomfort. That's going to really be necessary to have the external solutions that you're employing be as effective as possible. A quick example of this could be, you know, you've got a really tight contract and feel solid on that, but then you don't follow it, right? So you can have the best contract in the world, cover all the different clauses, and think through all the what-ifs. And if you don't uphold your contract because you're uncomfortable in some way, upholding it, it's not going to serve you.
Piggybacking on the whole feelings and emotions thing is the another one that gets in your way is really relying solely on feelings without fact-checking. I definitely believe that there's a place for intuition, checking your gut, that internal knowing in making decisions in your business. And I also think it's really helpful to balance that, especially depending on the situation, to balance it with a closer inspection and bringing in some factual evidence, because often these instinctual feelings that we can kind of mistake for intuition are actually coming from unhelpful mindsets and outdated identities.
So we need to sort through what is a feeling that is, quote unquote, “true,” and we want to follow versus just a feeling that's coming from a really well-practiced, well-rehearsed mindset. So I think it's important to say, like, yes, listen to your own internal knowing and also listen to what your business is telling you through your tracking, your data, your numbers.
The last thing that I want to call out here, when it comes to blocking you from seeing what the true problem is that you need to solve for, is when you start focusing on solving for the uncontrollable. This could look like blaming others or blaming outside circumstances for results that you have or engaging in over-responsibility for people, kind of trying to move the puppet strings to again, help you avoid something uncomfortable or outcomes that you don't want to have happen. When in reality, we cannot control everything.
I did an episode on that. It was 134 on over-responsibility. If that's striking a chord, go back and listen to that one. But both blaming and over-responsibility, they really create this sense of false control and sometimes it's coming from avoidance too because, you know, if it's someone else's fault that you have this issue or there's a circumstance you feel you can't change, then in some ways, you can kind of give yourself this kind of unhelpful permission to sit back and go, "Well, I can't do anything about it." Or you like totally overcorrect and you think you can control every last thing in the universe, and that is very exhausting.
So let's make this a productive problem. Choose to focus your attention on what you can do, what you can control, and what you can take responsibility for. And when you start to look at the problem through those three lenses, you're going to start to see what's actually going on.
I've started to talk a little bit already about how do you identify what that root issue is. How do you know what the right problem is to solve? But I want to go into that even more here. I think the very first thing I'll just say is, make sure it's actually a problem that you need to solve right now. Is this causing an issue that I need to address, and is it one that needs to be addressed right now? If the answer is no, put it low on the list, and you can come back to it if you want to assess it.
But if the answer is yes, don't just dive into the doing. Remember that reactivity, pause, and take a closer look. This is going to save you so much time, so much money, and energy to identify what's actually going on.
We're in August now as I'm recording this, and we're headed out on a trip very soon for our family. And in the past, some of the times we've gone to Colorado, my husband has a lot of family there. And as I was thinking through this idea of solving the right problems, I was considering all those beautiful hikes through Rocky Mountain National Park and some of the streams that you walk past. And I thought about how in solving for the right problems, it's really about going far enough upstream.
If you follow that stream, you want to look at where does it originate. It's the same thing when you're looking at issues in the business. You want to know where does the problem originate? Or you could even look at it as a stream flowing down. Where is there a big rock preventing you from continuing moving the water downward? You can start to look at where are there things blocking you, where are the things that are breaking down? And what's the original source?
I'll give you an example here. Maybe you're spending more time on discovery calls with clients who are just not your ideal client. And you want to look at, all right, so I want to eliminate this time, but why is it happening in the first place? Maybe the client filter you create through having that inquiry form on your website isn't tight enough to help people self-select out of the process. Or maybe it just doesn't give you enough information so that when the inquiry comes through, you don't have enough on what the project is, the budget, etc, to really help sort through those inquiries and decide who you want to talk to.
Or maybe it is actually that you're using words on your website that were perfect for speaking to the client you used to serve three years ago, but do not reflect what you do now, what the work is that your firm's taking on, and it is not in line with where you're headed. Or maybe it's in the marketing part of your stream, and it's that you haven't been creating enough new relationships that are in alignment with your current goals. And that's really where you need to put your focus.
Get really clear, where does the stream or the problem originate? Or where is that big boulder or big log that's fallen into the stream blocking you? Know what you're aiming at. I'll also say that sometimes you will not feel certain that you have identified the right problem. And this is not a reason to stall or spin or not take action.
You're going to look at it with some different angles. You're going to look at what's really going on here for you and you're going to have to take your best guess. You're going to create a hypothesis, you're going to gather whatever information you need to have, and then you have to do. You cannot just think your way to an answer. So for those of you who tend to get into overthinking cycles, do not get stuck there.
Enter the implementation cycle. That's something I've talked about on episodes before. I don't think I've done one specifically on it, but it's come up. But where you're making decisions, you're taking actions, you're gathering information from the action you take, and from that, you make a new decision and you keep on going.
So as we start to wrap up, I want you to think about what is something you've been stuck on? What information do you need to look at this from all the angles? What emotional processing do you need to do to clear the way so you can see the challenge that's behind those muddled feelings? What I'm inviting you to do is take a walk along the path of that stream and look for where you're getting stuck. Where does the problem originate from? And what is it that you really need to solve for?
Because when you are solving for the right problems, you're going to create long-lasting change. And those are outcomes that you're going to build upon for years and years. And the solutions that you then decide to employ are going to feel more aligned with how you like to work, what you do best, and it's going to create more ease and less frustration from less spinning or bumping up things that just aren't working so that you can more effectively use your resources of time, money, energy, and team.
Take this truth and run with it. Effective solutions come from solving the right problem. Because what I want you to remember here is you're not really just trying to solve a problem to solve the problem. The problem is not the endgame. What you want to do is create a solution that blooms into the outcome or result that you want to create in your business. So take the time and get clear on what really needs to be done, and then proceed.
For all of you who are following along with CEO Summer School, make sure to check your email for a few prompts that's going to help you apply today's episode. And of course, if you're not signed up, it's not too late. You can go to desicreswell.com/resources and you'll find the CEO Summer School page, sign up there. You can also sign up for Monday Mindset, which is my Monday newsletter, which if you love the podcast, you will absolutely love getting Monday Mindset. It's a great way to start the week. It's also how you can stay up to date on all the different ways that I can help you or things that are happening in my world.
I'm going to be back next week with a brand new episode, and I have an interview to share with you. I have Katie Kath here, the creative director and CEO at J Kath Design Build, and we're going to be diving into hiring, leadership, and growing her multifaceted firm, which includes not just design and remodeling, but also a custom cabinet shop. Make sure you're subscribed so you do not miss that. It's going to be good, and I've got some other interviews coming up too that you're going to want to listen to. Until we talk next Wednesday, I am wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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