Externalise Problems to Think More Clearly

Phil was overwhelmed. Recently promoted to the executive team, he had inherited a division in serious need of attention. When we spoke, he was jumping so quickly from one problem to another that I could barely follow him.

I could see that he was at the end of his rope.

The problems were not imaginary. But their number, complexity and apparent interconnectedness had left him unable to decide where to begin. So I gave him a deceptively simple task: write down everything that was bothering him on a single page.

What happened next illustrates why learning to externalise problems is such an important part of strategic thinking.

The situation: from critic to accountable executive

Phil, not his real name, had only recently taken responsibility for the division. He had previously worked elsewhere in the same organisation and had been one of its fiercest critics.

From the outside, its shortcomings had seemed obvious. He could see what was wrong and was confident that someone needed to fix it.

Then he became that someone.

It is much easier to criticise a problem than to take responsibility for solving it. Once Phil was in charge, he could see not only the visible failings but also the complicated reality beneath them.

Almost everything appeared to need attention:

• The systems were out of date.
• The processes were inadequate for the work.
• The team was under-resourced.
• People lacked some of the skills they needed.
• Problems overlapped, making cause and effect difficult to distinguish.
• Every potential intervention seemed to depend on something else being fixed first.

This was not one tidy problem. It was a system of problems.

Phil did what many capable executives do in that situation: he tried to hold the whole system in his head.

It wasn’t working.

The problem: everything felt urgent

During our conversation, Phil moved rapidly between systems, processes, people and resources. Each concern reminded him of another. Every time he tried to explain one issue, he uncovered two more.

His thoughts may have made sense individually, but the way they were arriving made it impossible to see the whole picture.

I could not make sense of what he was uncovering because he was so all over the place. More importantly, neither could he.

This is one of the dangers of overwhelm. It does not merely make you feel uncomfortable. It impairs your ability to distinguish between different kinds of problem.

Symptoms become confused with causes. Important issues become mixed with merely urgent ones. Assumptions begin to look like facts. And because everything appears connected to everything else, no starting point feels safe.

The result is often paralysis, frantic activity or an unhelpful oscillation between the two.

The intervention: put it all on one page

Rather than trying to solve the individual problems during that conversation, I asked Phil to do something much simpler.

I asked him to write down, on a single page, the things that were bothering him.

That was all.

I did not give him a complicated template or ask him to produce a polished transformation plan. The page did not need to be suitable for the board. Its immediate purpose was to move the problems out of his head and into a form that he could examine.

The single-page constraint mattered. It forced him to decide what belonged, how the issues related to one another and which details could be left out.

It took him a little longer than I had anticipated.

When he eventually sent me the document, he apologised for the delay. But the result was far better than I had expected. His thinking was already quite well structured, and the beginnings of possible solutions were visible.

Phil explained that, as soon as he got the issues onto the page, he began to see their structure. Once he could see the structure, he wanted to keep working on it.

The delay was not a failure to complete the exercise. It was evidence that the exercise was working.

The insight: writing changes the problem

Ideas look different when you externalise them.

That applies to ideas that seem perfectly sound in your head. It also applies, as it did in Phil’s case, to thoughts that feel confused, threatening or unmanageable.

While a problem remains in your head, you experience it partly as thought and partly as emotion. It can feel much larger than it is because you must keep remembering its components while simultaneously trying to understand their relationships.

Writing changes that.

Once your thoughts are on the page, you no longer need to hold everything in working memory. You can inspect what you have written, move things around and compare one claim with another.

You can ask:

• Is this one problem or several?
• Is this a cause, a symptom or a consequence?
• What evidence supports this conclusion?
• Which issues are connected?
• What am I assuming?
• Do I actually understand this well enough to explain it?
• Where might an intervention have the greatest effect?

Sometimes writing reveals that your thinking is clearer than it felt. At other times, it exposes gaps that fluent internal reasoning had concealed.

You may discover that you cannot define the problem, explain why it matters or describe the mechanism connecting it to the outcome you fear. That struggle is useful. It tells you where your understanding ends.

Writing is therefore not merely a way of recording finished thinking. It is a way of doing the thinking itself.

The outcome: structure began to reveal solutions

Phil did not solve every problem simply by writing a page. The systems were still outdated. The team still needed resources and skills. The processes still required attention.

What changed was his relationship with those problems.

They were no longer an undifferentiated mass pressing on him from every direction. They had become a set of issues he could name, organise, question and prioritise.

That distinction is critical. When a problem is operating only inside your head, it can work on you. Once it has been externalised, you can begin working on it.

Structure also creates the conditions for action. When you can see which problems are foundational, which are symptoms and which can wait, you can begin to establish a sequence.

You may not yet have a complete answer, but you can identify the next useful step. In complex situations, that is often what progress looks like.

How to externalise a complex problem

If you are facing a situation in which everything seems urgent and interconnected, try the same exercise.

1. Start with what is bothering you

Do not wait until you have a formal problem statement. Write down the concerns as they occur to you. The first version can be untidy.

2. Keep it to one page

The constraint forces you to compress, group and prioritise. If you need supporting detail, keep it elsewhere. The main page should help you see the whole.

3. Group related concerns

Look for themes such as people, processes, technology, resources, governance or capability. Use categories that emerge from the situation rather than forcing the problem into an unsuitable framework.

4. Separate facts from interpretations

Distinguish what you know from what you suspect. “The team has four vacancies” is different from “the team cannot deliver because it is under-resourced”. The second statement may be true, but it contains a conclusion that needs testing.

5. Look for causes and dependencies

Ask which problems create or amplify others. This can reveal where a relatively focused intervention might have a wider effect.

6. Identify the next decision

Do not demand a complete solution from the first page. Decide what must be understood, tested or addressed next.

A method hiding in plain sight

This article was written using the same method.

The initial material was a collection of thoughts: Phil’s distress, his promotion, the scale of the inherited challenge and the value of writing things down. Putting those thoughts on the page made their relationship clearer. The story acquired a structure, and that structure revealed the argument.

Writing did not simply communicate the answer. It helped produce it.

When your thoughts feel tangled, your first task may not be to solve them. It may be to give them somewhere else to live.

Put them on a page. Then see what changes.

If you are responsible for a complex strategic challenge and need help turning it into a structured course of action, book a conversation to discuss your needs.