Advice

What My Plumber Taught Me About Problem Solving Abilities (And Why Your MBA Probably Didn't)

My kitchen tap started dripping at 11:47 PM on a Thursday, and by Friday morning I'd already called three different tradies, watched seventeen YouTube videos, and convinced myself I could fix it with a paperclip and some determination.

Enter Dave. Sixty-something bloke from Blacktown who turned up with a toolbox that looked like it had survived both world wars and possibly a few family feuds. Within thirty seconds of walking through my door, he'd diagnosed the problem, identified two additional issues I hadn't even noticed, and somehow knew exactly which washer he needed without even looking in his kit.

"How'd you know that?" I asked, genuinely impressed by what seemed like plumbing telepathy.

Dave shrugged. "Forty-two years of broken taps, mate. You see enough problems, you start recognising the patterns."

That conversation changed how I think about problem-solving abilities entirely. And frankly, it made me realise that most of what we teach in corporate training rooms is missing the bloody point.

The Pattern Recognition Revolution

Here's what Dave understood that most business consultants don't: problem-solving abilities aren't really about following methodologies or frameworks. They're about pattern recognition developed through experience, intuition honed by repetition, and the confidence to trust your gut when the textbook solution doesn't fit.

I've spent fifteen years running strategic thinking workshops, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the people who solve problems fastest aren't the ones who memorised the five-step process. They're the ones who've seen enough variations of the same core issues to spot the underlying patterns immediately.

Take Sarah from our Melbourne office. She can walk into any client meeting and within twenty minutes identify whether their "communication problem" is actually a leadership issue, a systems failure, or just good old-fashioned personality clashes. Not because she follows a checklist, but because she's untangled similar knots hundreds of times before.

The corporate world loves to overcomplicate this stuff. We create elaborate problem-solving models with acronyms and flowcharts and decision trees that look impressive on PowerPoint slides but crumble the moment you encounter a problem that doesn't fit neatly into predetermined categories.

Why Your Instincts Matter More Than Your Process

I'm going to say something that might ruffle a few feathers: most of the time, your first instinct about a problem is probably right. Or at least, it's pointing you in the right direction.

But we've trained ourselves out of trusting instincts. We demand data for everything, want three supporting documents, and need committee approval before we'll even admit there might be an issue worth solving. By the time we've gathered enough evidence to satisfy our internal compliance departments, the problem has usually evolved into something completely different.

Dave didn't need to run a diagnostic test on my tap. He didn't need to consult a manual or get a second opinion. Forty-two years of experience had given him a database of solutions that he could access faster than any computer system.

That's not anti-intellectualism talking. That's recognising that problem-solving abilities develop through doing, not just thinking.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Business Problem Solving

Most business problems aren't actually that complex. They just feel complex because we've created systems that make simple things complicated.

Customer complaints? Usually comes down to unmet expectations or poor communication.

Team conflicts? Generally about unclear roles or competing priorities.

Project delays? Almost always because someone said yes when they should have said no, or because the brief changed halfway through.

Poor sales performance? Either the product doesn't solve a real problem, the marketing isn't reaching the right people, or the sales process creates more friction than value.

I've seen million-dollar consulting projects that essentially boiled down to "talk to your customers more often" or "maybe don't change the system every six months." But you can't charge enterprise rates for common sense, so we dress it up in complexity and call it strategic transformation.

Don't get me wrong – some problems genuinely are complicated and require sophisticated solutions. But about 80% of the issues I encounter in business could be solved by someone with Dave's approach: lots of experience, pattern recognition, and the confidence to act on what they know.

The Real Skills Nobody Talks About

When we talk about problem-solving abilities in corporate contexts, we focus on analytical thinking, root cause analysis, and systematic approaches. All useful stuff. But the abilities that actually make the difference rarely get mentioned in job descriptions or training programs.

Emotional regulation under pressure. When everything's on fire and stakeholders are panicking, can you stay calm enough to think clearly? Dave never rushed, even when water was spraying everywhere. Panic makes you stupid, and stupid people make problems worse.

The courage to try things. Most problem solvers I know are comfortable with trial and error. They'll test small solutions quickly rather than spend weeks planning the perfect approach. But corporate environments often punish failed experiments more than they reward successful ones, so people become paralysed by the need to be right the first time.

Knowing when to ignore the rules. Sometimes the prescribed solution doesn't work, and you need to improvise. The best problem solvers understand when to follow protocol and when to colour outside the lines. But this requires judgement that only comes from experience and organisational trust that's often missing.

Being comfortable with partial solutions. Not every problem needs to be solved completely. Sometimes 80% better is good enough, especially if achieving 100% would take ten times longer or cost five times more. But we've developed this weird obsession with perfect solutions that often prevents us from implementing good ones.

What This Means for Your Team

If you want to develop real problem-solving abilities in your organisation, stop focusing so much on processes and start building experience banks.

Create opportunities for people to encounter lots of different problems in low-stakes environments. Let them make mistakes and learn from them. Encourage pattern recognition by having people share stories about what worked and what didn't.

And for the love of all that's holy, stop punishing people for trying solutions that don't work perfectly the first time.

The most effective problem solvers I know – whether they're plumbers, surgeons, or business leaders – share a common trait: they've been wrong enough times to develop really good instincts about what's likely to work.

Dave fixed my tap in twelve minutes and charged me $180. Worth every cent, not just for the repair, but for the reminder that expertise isn't about knowing all the answers – it's about recognising the patterns quickly enough to find the right solution before the problem gets worse.

Sometimes the best business advice comes from people who've never set foot in a boardroom but have solved real problems under pressure for decades. Maybe it's time we started listening.

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