I recently read an article on training the brain, which asked me to state what the next number the author was thinking of in the following set of numbers:

2, 4, 6, 8…

What do you think?

Well if you are like me, I figured it was a pattern increasing by 2, and guessed 10 straight away  - turns out I was wrong. In fact the author was going to state 9, because while there was a pattern of increasing by 2, there was also just a pattern of increasing numbers – I just quickly assumed she was thinking in 2’s and would state 10 next. I guess it isn’t that easy to read minds after all.

And that was just a simple problem, with no consequences other than a nano- second of self disappointment.  Now imagine the process we go through when trying to solve bigger problems – market problems – and what the consequences could be if we just use the first answer that pops into our quick-thinking bias heads? Chances are it could negatively affect customer satisfaction, or at least not delight them as much as it could potentially.

Now what if instead of just instantly saying ‘10’ for the question above, I asked somebody else what they thought? Or even just stopped for a minute to consider other possibilities to try and prove my first answer wrong? I possibly would have seen there was another solution to the problem and then either given both answers, or at least just selected the one I thought was best.

Fact is, when people do not know an answer to something, we mostly rely on hunch to guide our answer – and hunch is really just an intuitive impression; a result of all our past experiences and outcomes influencing our current decision. Sometimes it is right, and sometimes it is wrong – but once we have one, it is instinctively really hard to think it is wrong.

In psychology, this is a recognized phenomenon called ‘confirmation bias’ and is stated as ‘wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis and ignore underlying evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis’.

Simply put, we (and by ‘we’ I mean our egos) like to be right.

But in product management, when it is the problems of the market we are trying to solve, it is a good idea to try and look past your hunches, at least for a little bit, and try to prove yourself wrong.  Or better yet, get others to try and prove you wrong. Brainstorming solution ideas can be done individually but by involving others in a brainstorming session, you will automatically eliminate the confirmation bias effect and be forced to discuss each solution idea. And once that discussion takes place, you can then start to determine which solution would be the best for the problem you are trying to solve and the market you are trying to solve it for.

Another reason to involve others?

Let’s try to solve another problem – connect the following set of 9 dots with 4 straight continuous lines without lifting your pencil from the page once you begin:

Did you get it? Nice job.

Stuck? Take a break, maybe turn the page around, do a headstand, and try to look at it from another angle.

Once you get it, you will realize how important it is to think from different angles (or in the case of the above puzzle, outside the box) – and how hard that can actually be to do. And a lot of times we will continuously try the same approach over and over again, convinced that we are right – something called ‘functional fixedness’, which limits a person to approach something, or use something, only in the same way in which we have used or approached it in the past.  In other words, it is hard for us to think about things from another angle when our brains have spent most of our lives thinking about them only from one or two.

Relate functional fixedness to how we solve market problems in product management and you can start to see how it can affect the types of solutions we come up with for a problem. If we tend to naturally only consider solutions from a couple of different angles, it is possible we are missing out on a more innovative solution which will have a larger impact on our market. Involving more people in brainstorming, including some from outside of your specific industry, can provide more angles to think from, and thus more innovative solution ideas to select from.

Despite what we sometimes think, solving problems is often times not an easy task. Taking the time to involve other people, move past our first hunches to try and prove ourselves wrong and approaching problems from as many angles as possible, can result in the innovative solutions the market is looking for – and can possibly even delight them with ones they weren’t.

How do you currently approach generating solution ideas for your market’s problems? Can you relate to confirmation bias or functional fixedness?