Do you have PSMS?
Problem Solving Mindset
I guess many of us want to be innovative and come out with fabulous ideas? We honestly want to go to customers with innovative solutions, but unable to think of even a single idea. The reason is that many of us don’t have the Problem-Solving Mind-Set. Problem solving mindset may not happen overnight unless some conscious efforts are taken. To achieve this, first of all we need to improve our problem identification capability. Often, the problem is that we don’t understand the problem clearly. If we start looking around for problems in our daily walk of life, problem solving mindset will slowly evolve.
In fact many a times we need not come with a solution on our own. If we are able to identify problems, solutions can be figured out from other places. If I give an example you may understand better.
All of us use medicine tablet strips… How do they look like? Have we ever realized how user-unfriendly they are? See this medicine strip and tell the problems.
As a consumer of the medicine I have the following problems.
- In India, most of the pharmaceutical companies print the medicine labels on glittering aluminum foils, which is difficult to read by the patients, especially the elders.
- Also when few tablets are consumed from the medicine strip, the name of the medicine and the expiry details are lost. This is because these details are printed on just one portion on of the medicine strip and not on all the tablets. Some times, the wrong consumption of a medicine due the above issue could also be fatal.
This is a potential problem that need to be solved. But I may not be able to solve the problem on my own. All I need to is to have the problem solving mindset and look for solutions. When I did a small research, I found that most of the developed countries ensure that the pharmacological information is legibly printed. See here a sample.
A solution is already available. No need to re-invent the wheel. If our Indian pharma industry also follows the legible printing, the problem is solved. But as a common citizen, how can influence the pharma industry to adopt the new practice?
I can send an online petition to the Health ministry on this. That is what I have done. Please have a look at the online petition. Please also support the petition so that the issue gets wide publicity.
From now on. start looking around problems in our daily walk of life. If possible come out with an idea to solve the problem. If not share your ideas with the right stakeholders. Whatever be the case, start cultivating the habit of developing a problem solving mindset. If that mindset becomes your DNA, you would be able to quickly identify your customer’s problem as well solutions for them. Wish you good luck!
