Why Most Problem Solving Training is Complete Rubbish (And What Actually Works)

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Three weeks ago, I walked into a corporate training room in Melbourne where 20-odd middle managers were being taught to "think outside the box" using coloured Post-it notes and a whiteboard covered in motivational quotes. The facilitator—who looked like she'd never solved anything more complex than choosing her lunch—was explaining the "5 Why" method as if she'd invented fire.

I wanted to walk out. But I stayed, because sometimes you need to see the disaster to appreciate what actually works.

Here's the brutal truth about problem solving training in Australia: 90% of it is theatrical nonsense designed to make HR departments feel productive. Real problem solving isn't learned in a conference room with role-playing exercises. It's forged in the trenches of actual business challenges, preferably when everything's going sideways at 3pm on a Friday.

The Fantasy vs Reality Gap

Most training programs peddle this fantasy that problems arrive neatly packaged with clear symptoms, obvious stakeholders, and convenient solutions. Absolute bollocks.

Real problems are messy. They're political landmines wrapped in budget constraints and seasoned with impossible deadlines. The customer who's screaming about delivery delays doesn't care about your beautifully constructed fishbone diagram. They want their bloody order.

I've spent fifteen years watching companies throw money at problem solving workshops that teach people to brainstorm with sticky notes. Meanwhile, their best problem solvers—the ones who actually keep the business running—are the bloke in dispatch who figured out how to reroute deliveries during the Brisbane floods, or the accounts manager who somehow convinced an angry client to extend their contract after a major stuff-up.

These people didn't learn their skills from a PowerPoint presentation about "divergent thinking." They learned by fixing things when they broke.

What Actually Develops Problem Solving Skills

The best problem solvers I know share three characteristics: they're naturally curious, they're comfortable with ambiguity, and they've failed enough times to recognise patterns.

You can't teach curiosity in a workshop. You can encourage it, sure, but it's either there or it isn't. Same with comfort around ambiguity—some people need everything mapped out before they'll take a step. Others are happy to start walking and figure out the destination along the way.

But failure? That's where training can actually help.

The most valuable problem solving training I ever attended wasn't really about problem solving at all. It was a critical thinking workshop that spent two days teaching us to recognise our own cognitive biases. Turns out, most business problems aren't actually problems—they're symptoms of decisions we made six months ago based on incomplete information and wishful thinking.

That workshop changed how I approach everything. Instead of jumping straight to solutions, I started asking uncomfortable questions about assumptions. Why do we think this is the real problem? What evidence do we actually have? What if we're completely wrong about the cause?

The Problem with Problem Solving Models

Don't get me started on the obsession with models and frameworks. Six steps, seven steps, twelve steps—it's like collecting Pokemon cards for consultants.

Here's what nobody tells you: experienced problem solvers don't follow linear models. They bounce around between analysis and action, they backtrack when new information emerges, and they often solve problems through sheer bloody-mindedness rather than systematic methodology.

The worst training programs treat problem solving like following a recipe. Step one: define the problem. Step two: generate alternatives. Step three: evaluate options. It's mechanical, predictable, and completely divorced from how decisions actually get made in organisations.

Real problem solving is more like jazz improvisation than classical music. You need to know the fundamentals, but then you have to respond to what's happening in the moment. Sometimes you need to throw the framework out the window and trust your gut.

Industry Training: Hit and Miss

The problem solving training industry in Australia is surprisingly inconsistent. You've got excellent programs run by people with genuine business experience, and you've got expensive workshops delivered by professional trainers who wouldn't last five minutes in a real crisis.

I've seen some brilliant small business training programs that focus on practical, real-world scenarios. They throw participants into messy, ambiguous situations and force them to work through genuine business problems. No templates, no step-by-step guides—just raw problem solving under pressure.

But I've also sat through mind-numbing sessions where participants spend hours categorising problems by type and urgency, as if real problems arrive with convenient labels attached. These programs produce people who can talk a good game about systematic approaches but fall apart when faced with genuine complexity.

The difference? The good programs are designed by people who've actually had to solve problems for a living. The rubbish ones are created by professional course developers who think business is a series of case studies from textbooks.

What Companies Actually Need

Instead of generic problem solving training, organisations need programs tailored to their specific challenges. A manufacturing company dealing with supply chain disruptions needs different skills than a service business managing customer complaints.

The best training I've experienced was industry-specific. We worked on actual problems from our own workplace, with real constraints and genuine consequences. When you're trying to figure out why production efficiency dropped 15% last quarter, you're not thinking about abstract problem solving models—you're trying to save your department's budget.

This approach requires more effort from training providers. It's easier to deliver a one-size-fits-all workshop about brainstorming techniques than to understand the specific challenges facing each client. But companies that invest in customised programs see dramatically better results.

The Missing Element: Decision Making Under Pressure

Here's what most problem solving training completely ignores: the emotional and psychological pressure of making decisions when stakes are high.

Academic problem solving happens in controlled environments with unlimited time and perfect information. Business problem solving happens when the server's crashed, the client's threatening to sue, and your boss wants answers in the next thirty minutes.

The physical stress response—the racing heart, the sweaty palms, the tunnel vision—fundamentally changes how we process information. Yet most training programs pretend this doesn't exist.

I learned more about problem solving from a single crisis situation than from years of workshops. When our main supplier went into administration two weeks before Christmas, we had to completely redesign our distribution strategy in 48 hours. No time for root cause analysis or systematic evaluation of alternatives. Just rapid-fire decision making based on incomplete information and educated guesses.

That experience taught me that problem solving isn't really about finding perfect solutions—it's about making the best decisions you can with the information you have, then adapting quickly when circumstances change.

Training That Actually Works

The most effective problem solving development happens through structured reflection on real experiences. Instead of learning generic frameworks, people need help processing what they've already been through.

What decisions worked well and why? What would you do differently next time? What patterns are you starting to notice across different situations?

This kind of reflection is rarely part of formal training programs, but it's where genuine learning happens. Companies like 3M and Toyota have built cultures around systematic reflection, and their problem solving capabilities are legendary as a result.

The other crucial element is exposure to diverse perspectives. Most business problems have multiple valid solutions, and the best ones often emerge from combining different viewpoints. But this requires psychological safety—people need to feel comfortable challenging assumptions and proposing unconventional ideas.

Training programs that focus on building this kind of collaborative problem solving culture are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, they're also rare as hen's teeth.

The Bottom Line

If you're considering problem solving training for your team, skip anything that promises simple solutions to complex challenges. Look for programs that embrace messiness, encourage experimentation, and focus on building adaptive capacity rather than mechanical skills.

The goal isn't to create people who follow problem solving models perfectly. It's to develop individuals who can navigate ambiguity, learn from failure, and make sound decisions under pressure.

And please, for the love of all that's holy, avoid any training that involves building towers out of marshmallows and spaghetti. Your problems are more complex than that, and your people deserve better preparation for the challenges they'll actually face.

The best problem solvers are made through experience, reflection, and practice—not through workshops about thinking outside boxes that probably didn't exist in the first place.