Problem Solved: A Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions with Confidence and Conviction

by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, Tony Blair (Foreword)

*International Book Awards Finalist It can be messy and overwhelming to figure out how to solve thorny problems. Where do you start? How do you know where to look for information and evaluate its quality and bias? How can you feel confident that you are making a careful and thoroughly researched decision? Whether you are deciding between colleges, navigating a career decision, helping your aging parents find the right housing, or expanding your business, Problem Solved will show you how to use the powerful AREA Method to make complex personal and professional decisions with confidence and conviction. Cheryl's AREA Method coaches you to make smarter, better decisions because
Life is filled with uncertainty, but that uncertainty needn't hobble us. Problem Solved offers a proactive way to work with, and work through, ambiguity to make thoughtful, confident decisions despite our uncertain and volatile world.

Genres: Business, Psychology, Self Help, Nonfiction, Leadership, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2017

Reviews

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very interested in reading this book and learning about a new way to deal with complex decisions. I was an early convert to Kepner Tregoe Matrices when starting my career making technology direction decisions for a large company, but have not furthered my knowledge since then on this topic. I enjoyed this book conceptually. I appreciated that the book really focused on looking for biases in your information by making that search a formal part of the process. The author is a journalist, and you can see that looking for biases is key to that profession, especially for investigative journalism. I believe it is also key in any political or personal decision, which is pretty much all of them that matter. The author includes a number of worksheets that will help work through decisions. The author also follows a handful of decisions from start to finish using her toolkit of worksheets. I found these examples to be very interesting as they led to their subjects really understanding what they wanted to get out of the decision. The most interesting example to me was the student choosing between going to University of Pittsburg and Johns Hopkins for an undergrad degree with the aim to get into medical school.

I listened to this on audio from Hoopla. The worksheets to help in decision making are apparently included in the book, but are not well described on the audio. And Hoopla doesn’t make non-audio files available when borrowing audiobooks. Given that, I couldn’t tell if these important artifacts were as well done as I imagined. The author stated that the worksheets were available on her website. After signing up for her emails, I received a download link that gave me access to four of the two dozen worksheets described in the book. Hopefully a reader of the paper book didn’t borrow his copy and return it prior to legally duplicating those sheets thinking he could access all of them from the website. Those worksheets really were the practical value provided by the book, beyond the generic approach. I suggest only listening to the audiobook for generic approach, but acquiring the book for the worksheets if this sounds like an interesting topic.

[Michael Gat · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a book about making business decisions, it seems to mostly rehash old ideas I've seen before, but of course does so in a "new" (Cheetah) format that gives the author her unique hook and product to sell. In fact, her "AREA" (Absolute, Relative, Exploration/Exploitation, Analysis) approach to making decisions isn't all that different from a half a dozen others I've seen in or since business school. It isn't even all that different from the SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) we use in emergency and wilderness medicine. In fact, those ubiquitous "SOAP note" forms were the first thing I thought of when I saw her "Cheetah sheets."

Another issue that irked me right from the start was that this will be most useful if you're in the Fortune 500 or other relatively rarefied business environments where it is easy to separate the organization from the people. She makes clear early on that she sees everything through the lens of business organizations:

"Every personal decision—whether it’s about which college to attend or whether to move your aging parents to a nursing home—is impacted by a business or organization."

I've found that to be a rather myopic way of looking at things in most real-world environments, and I'd dare say that the most important personal decisions I've made had nothing whatsoever to do with any business organizations at all. That doesn't make her approach wrong, just less than universally applicable. Which is fine so long as you don't sell it as more than it is, as she attempts to do.

How useful all this will be is likely to come down to whether you've seen something similar before. If you've had any training in structured decision making in a high-velocity environment -- including the kinds of training one routinely gets in the military, law enforcement, medicine and many other fields -- this will likely be mostly a rehash with slightly different terminology. If you've been through any sort of business training program you've probably also seen this. (The author teaches her method at the Columbia Business School, but every school including my own UCLA/Anderson has somebody teaching some variation on the same theme.) If, on the other hand, you're new to decision making in high-velocity high-stress environments, you'll probably get something from it. If you've seen it before and are just feeling rusty because you haven't done it in a while, this could also be a nice refresher with a handful of new twists.

For me, there just wasn't enough to get all the way through.

[Shane Orr · Rating 3 out of 5]

When was the last time you had to make a tough decision? How did you go about it? My guess is that most people just think about the options and weigh the pros and cons. This book details a systematic process that allows you to avoid jumping to a decision prematurely and avoid common mistakes and biases. It's obvious that Einhorn has a journalism background, as there is a focus on research and interviewing, but by carefully following the outlined steps you should make better decisions and have a good understanding of why you make the choice that you do.

[Nick Woodall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't overly impressed with this book. Basically, do your research before you make a decision. I didn't need 223 pages to tell me that.

[Jesse Kane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheryl Strauss, author of “Problem Solved,” takes a scientific approach to sifting through data in an organized way. Her decision making matrix is immediately helpful in the absolute phase, which emphasizes gathering facts through research to make a quality decision. Of particular value here was the section on numerical data where Strauss notes “it enables you to see your Absolute target as objectively and as uninfluenced as possible. Second, it recognizes that organizations, or entities, present data on what they consider to be their main issues.” While it is difficult to interpret numerical data objectively, it is of unparalleled utility in reaching a fact-based decision. Strauss also notes that the way numbers are presented carries data about what a decision making target values.
Problem Solved should be read by people who need to make informed, fact based decisions. I can see her book being particularly useful for project managers, data analysts, and hedge fund managers due to the significance that decision making plays in their jobs. Her book also has implications away from wall-street style vocations; pastors and lay people would benefit from the kind of thoughtful research Strauss encourages her readers to put into making a decision.
It would be helpful if Strauss added a section about affective decision making in an organisation. Facts are essential to making good decisions, but ignoring how to present and manage facts in a way that influences stakeholder’s hearts turns them into a brain on a stick. It would improve Strauss’s work if she could weave in the humanity of the people these facts are meant to influence.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t find this book insightful or unique in any way. 217 pages that repeatedly offers up advice that is pretty basic and not all that earth-shattering: to make a good decision you should do some thorough research about all of the available options. Erm okay but I’m guessing the people who would think to pick up this book probably already know that. I for one learned this in high school in two classes I was thankfully forced to take called “Critical Thinking” and “Adult Life Skills”. There’s maybe where this book should go - high schoolers might benefit from reading this - because I’m not too sure high schools actually teach either critical thinking or adulting as subjects in and of themselves anymore.

Overall - a tired, stale rehash of settled and standard adult thinking. Sure she added an acronym to her advice but in the end it’s still the same advice - you should probably do a lot of research if you want to make a halfway informed decision about something important.

I was intrigued about the authors approach after listening to her give a presentation at a university but boy was this disappointing.

[Pugazharasu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is good but not great, which is what makes it disappointing. The entire "AREA" process is by itself just a combination of various other techniques, and the absence of any statistics (conveniently replaced with "real life" examples) make it even duller and useless. The only thing unique to this book is its "cheetah sprints" i.e. small summaries of crucial processes and their elements. There's nothing unique or astounding about this, so I would not recommend that you read it

[Brian Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books explain things and others layout the plan for how to get results. Problem Solved falls into the second category. You can easily imagine how a college course with actual weekly assignments and discussions about progress and challenges turned into this fantastic book. The writing is clear, the assignments are explained well and Cheryl does an excellent job of setting expectations.

[Aubrey George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps my experience with the book fell short of expectations because I was not actively pursuing a problem resolution while reading it.

AREA- absolute research, relative research, explore, exploit

CC - critical criteria

The value of this book lies in the PDF attached to the book rather than the writing or narratives. The framework itself doesn’t seem sufficient to warrant a book, though.

[Paul Tenorio · Rating 4 out of 5]

AREA method of problem solving providing keen focus on challenging one's own bias and the bias of other involved and the group bias as well. The book is well organized and supplements other problem solving methods as well as standing on its own.

[Ramesh Naidu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to understand and follow . Almost need to attend her class to follow the process . Sounds extremely promising but very hard to emulate and replicate

[Emma Trout · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a natural tendency to make decisions swiftly, relying solely on my instincts. This book has been instrumental in guiding me to recognize opportunities for more thoughtful and methodical decision-making, providing practical tools for each phase of the process. Although the outlined process may initially feel unfamiliar, it encourages you to look beyond the decision itself to the desired outcome, ensuring decisions align with your values and priorities.

I've implemented this approach multiple times and can't emphasize enough how transformative it has been for my life!