Ken Watanabe’s Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People Reviewed
Do your children have big dreams, like becoming movie star-astronaut-Olympic skaters? Do more than sign them up for skating lessons, saying, “You can be anything you want to be, sweetie.” Try Ken Watanabe’s Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People. It’s a short, easy read that shows kids (and adults) how to identify and solve problems in a simple, linear way.
Watanabe, a former McKinsey consultant, first published this guide in Japan as way to introduce critical thinking to children. It became Japan’s best-selling business book of 2007 and enjoyed further success after the English edition appeared in 2009. Though aimed at kids — it’s about 100 pages, features cute drawings and charts, and addresses problems like saving your allowance to buy a computer — it doesn’t talk down to them.
Instead, it encourages kids to work through problems step by step, using three case studies.
They’ll learn to develop specific goals beyond “I want to win an Oscar someday,” explore different options, and analyze those choices to decide on a plan of action. Watanabe presents all this as easy and fun, more of a mindset than actual work. In this book, a new computer is just a few decision trees away.
Then again, when was the last time you saw a kid make a chart that wasn’t for school? Watanabe takes a businesslike approach, speaking to kids like miniature consultants and dispensing straightforward, solid advice. Specific tools help identify problems, and lend insight on how they can evaluate potential solutions using charts or interviews among friends.
But it’s also a very linear approach to problem solving. Watanabe focuses on exploiting options that are already available, rather than exploring new ones. In one play-along exercise, he asks readers to imagine how they might revamp a pepper shaker. The goal is to increase the amount of pepper dispensed without having to increase the force or amount of shaking. He suggests either making the shaker’s holes bigger or the pepper grains smaller.
What’s missing are the tools to imagine an entirely new pepper shaker. Some problems can be solved by inching forward, but others require imaginative leaps. One of Watanabe’s case studies centers on a student band’s promotion efforts, assuming that they’ve already written and practiced a repertoire of original songs. But you can’t write a song in increments, chord by chord—at some point, you have to commit to a melody that joins them together. And unless the band has quality songs, there’s no point promoting their shows (evidence from the Top 40 aside).
It’s good to have incremental, measurable improvements, but one of the advantages children have is their capacity for non-linear thinking. It would be even better to see a problem-solving method that took advantage of kids’ creativity instead of simply cautioning them to be realistic and practical. Problems can’t be solved by imagination alone, of course, but innovation is more than just following certain procedures and taking small, steady steps.
This is where Problem Solving 101 might appeal more to adults than to children. It makes any problem, no matter how thorny, seem approachable: just break it down into specific action items and plan your attack with logic trees. There’s no imagination or leap of faith required; you just have to sit down and chip away at your goal, task by task, chart by chart.
Maybe Watanabe is encouraging readers to think like consultants rather than trying to turn children into little innovators. Eventually, the critical thinking skills will be essential to finding usable solutions, whether in school, as a Solver on hypios, or in a triple-threat career. Kids may as well learn early, and from a book as engaging and well-written as this.
Tags: Book Review, consulting, creativity, critical thinking, decision making, imagination, Innovation, Ken Watanabe, kids, Problem Solving 101, problem-solving, tools
Become a fan
