{"id":1397,"date":"2010-03-02T08:52:51","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T16:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2010\/03\/great_solutions_to_bad_questio\/"},"modified":"2010-03-02T08:52:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T16:52:51","slug":"great_solutions_to_bad_questio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/great_solutions_to_bad_questio.php","title":{"rendered":"Great answers to bad questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve noticed a general agreement that the arts and culture world needs ‘problem solvers,’ people who can advance creative solutions with limited resources. But from observing countless cultural conversations, I’m emerging into a different view.<\/p>\n

From my experience, we’ve got PLENTY of problem solvers. We’re swimming in them. Extraordinarily resourceful artists, managers, board members, and communities, make something from nothing everyday. We’re a ‘can do’ culture with a ‘will do’ spirit. God bless us, every one.<\/p>\n

Problem is, we’re not particularly good at DEFINING the problem we’re solving. Conference sessions go directly from challenge identification to solutions without stopping to reflect on the deeper dynamics or context in play. Board meetings descend inevitably into tactics, skipping over observation and strategy, in part because we’re great problem-solvers, and in part because reflection is perceived as ‘theoretical’ and ‘detached.’<\/p>\n

So, in our conferences and convenings, I suggest we declare partial victory on problem solving, and declare war on problem definition. I wonder what a conference would look like with that as a primary goal. Here are some handy tips<\/a> to lead us in that direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve noticed a general agreement that the arts and culture world needs ‘problem solvers,’ people who can advance creative solutions with limited resources. But from observing countless cultural conversations, I’m emerging into a different view. From my experience, we’ve got PLENTY of problem solvers. We’re swimming in them. Extraordinarily resourceful artists, managers, board members, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}