Power skills | Problem-solving
How to develop your problem-solving skills
Problem-solving isn’t a single skill, it’s a cluster of your connected abilities working together
Words Sophie Cross Illustrations iStock
When people describe someone as a ‘natural’ problem-solver, they're usually describing a person who has developed abilities such as pattern recognition, logical reasoning, creative thinking, emotional regulation under pressure and clear communication – often without realising it.
Recognising that problem-solving is multi-layered is itself a useful starting point because it means you can identify which elements you're strong in and which need work, rather than treating the whole thing as one vague competency you either have or don’t.
Define the problem properly
The most common mistake in problem-solving isn’t choosing the wrong solution, it’s solving the wrong problem. Rushing to fix what's immediately visible often means treating a symptom rather than the underlying cause.
STEPS
Before you reach for answers, slow down and ask:
What exactly is the problem here?
Who does it affect and how?
When did it start?
What has changed?
Who does it affect and how?
A useful technique is to write the problem down in a single, specific sentence. If you can't do that yet, you probably don’t understand it well enough to solve it. The discipline of articulating a problem clearly forces you to confront assumptions you didn’t know you were making.
Break it down
Once you've defined the problem, resist the urge to tackle it as one overwhelming whole. Complex problems become far more manageable when they're broken into component parts.
Ask yourself:
- What are the distinct elements involved?
- Which of those can I influence directly and which are outside my control?
- What would need to be true for this to be resolved?
This kind of structured approach is particularly valuable in finance and accounting, where problems often involve multiple variables, stakeholders or regulatory factors simultaneously. Breaking a problem down doesn’t just make it easier to tackle, it also helps you prioritise because not every component will need equal attention. Identifying the part that's causing the most difficulty lets you focus your energy where it matters most.
Develop pattern recognition
Gaining experience is one of the fastest routes to better problem-solving, precisely because it builds pattern recognition, which is the ability to spot when a situation resembles something you've encountered before. When you've experienced a cash flow crisis caused by slow invoicing three times, you start to recognise the early warning signs long before it becomes critical.
But you don’t have to wait for experience to accumulate passively; you can accelerate it by implementing a review process. This kind of deliberate reflection and learning turns incidents into transferable knowledge for you. After each significant problem you work through (whether it went well or badly), take a few minutes to reflect:
- What was the root cause?
- What did I miss initially?
- What would I look for earlier next time?
Reading case studies, discussing real scenarios with colleagues and seeking out problems slightly beyond your current comfort zone are all ways to build pattern recognition without having to learn everything from scratch through your own mistakes.
Separate facts from assumptions
Many of your problem-solving errors will likely stem from treating your assumptions as facts. You might assume you know why a client is unhappy or why there’s an error in a particular area of the accounts, or that the same approach that worked last quarter will work again.
Getting into the habit of recognising your assumptions creates useful distance between what you know and what you think you know. When you notice you're operating on an assumption, it becomes a prompt to check: is this actually true or am I guessing?
In practice, this might mean asking one more question before concluding a diagnosis, reviewing the data again before recommending a course of action, or simply saying to a client: “I want to make sure I’ve understood this correctly before I suggest anything.”
Build your tolerance for ambiguity
Good problem-solvers are comfortable sitting with uncertainty for longer than most people. The pressure to reach a quick conclusion is real, particularly when clients, managers or deadlines are involved, but premature decision-making often leads to incomplete solutions.
Practise staying in the exploratory phase a little longer than feels natural and generate multiple possible explanations before committing to one. Always consider what it is you might be missing, or ask yourself what the problem would look like from your client’s, colleague’s or an auditor’s perspective.
This isn’t being indecisive, it’s being rigorous. The aim is to arrive at a well-reasoned answer more reliably, even if it takes slightly longer.
Use structured frameworks (but don’t always depend on them)
Tools such as the Five Whys technique (which involves asking ‘why?’ repeatedly until you reach a root cause), fishbone diagrams or pros-and-cons analyses can provide useful scaffolding, particularly when you're new to structured thinking or facing an unfamiliar type of problem.
Over time, however, the goal is to internalise the thinking behind these tools so you can apply them fluidly without needing to follow a formula. Frameworks provide good training wheels, which are valuable at first, but ideally something you outgrow.
Stay curious
Every problem you encounter is an opportunity to get better, but only if you engage with it actively rather than just getting through it. The finance professionals who become genuinely strong problem-solvers are usually those who stay curious about their own thinking: what worked, what didn’t and why.
The Association of Accounting Technicians. 30 Churchill Place, London E14 5RE. Registered charity no.1050724. A company limited by guarantee (No. 1518983).