Stop Guessing Quotes

“Great problem solvers develop the questions that they want to answer before they go about collecting information and data, rather than depending on whatever data streams they see. They grab the signal, not the noise.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“ask thought-provoking questions that guide you to collect information and look for very specific patterns, rather than shotgunning and looking at everything in the system.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“For problems of any significant difficulty, you need to start with your hands in your pockets, and your senses open. You need to get out there and study the problem in detail.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Great problem-solvers resist the temptation to guess at every stage of the process. Guessing is a tough habit to break, so get started!”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“To solve truly hard problems, you’ll need to use a method that doesn’t involve guessing in any step.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“The practice of guessing so obviously fails in detective work that it’s almost shocking that we guess when we have important problems to solve.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“If you get from someone a list of 10 “potential” root causes, they don’t know what’s happening. If you’ve come up with 200, you have no idea at all what’s happening.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Brainstorming might be useful in situations where creativity is required. However, solving hard problems is not one of these.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Truly solving the problem involves understanding what’s wrong and why it happened, through investigation and understanding—not by spending days or weeks testing different guesses until, hopefully, one works.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.1 —SHERLOCK HOLMES, IN SIGN OF THE FOUR”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Know what problem you’re solving. Often, people work on the wrong problem entirely by making some implicit assumption about what’s causing it. Great problem-solvers invest time upfront to make sure the problem they’re working on is well defined, measurable as a variable, and represents precisely what is wrong with the system or process.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Embrace your ignorance. Most people try to solve problems using the knowledge they already have about a process, but it’s what you don’t know that lies between you and the solution. Often we are afraid to admit our ignorance in front of others in order to preserve our reputation. Great problem-solvers not only admit their ignorance but also embrace it and ask questions others might find “stupid,” to shatter old assumptions about the problem.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“every unsolved problem is bottlenecked by not understanding the root cause at a fundamental level, and every single one needs some great problem-solvers to crack it.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Many people accept the world the way it is, and don’t see the incredible potential that is locked behind hard problems.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers

“Being willing to expose your ignorance can be hard, until you learn the costs of not doing so.”
― Nat Greene, Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers