Falling in Love with the Problem
In the startup, entrepreneurial space the phrase “fall in love with the problem not the solution” has become a mantra. While there is room for real debate about the role that entrepreneurship plays in the complicated landscape in which WMCAT works, the focus on truly understanding the problem and working to discover the “thing behind the thing” can lead to more thoughtful and equitable innovation.
Public Agency at WMCAT facilitating a project with West Michigan Works!
Nonprofit work is messy. People are complicated. Together, with our community we are tackling some pretty thorny “problems” – income security, living wage employment, college and career success, equity, systems change. There is an impulse to solve, to find solutions, and to move on to the next problem.
But by jumping to solutions, we rob ourselves of creativity, exploration, resilience, and truly delightful and innovative ideas that are rooted in the needs of people.
Falling in love with the problem for WMCAT means being unapologetically focused on people. Public Agency led the team from West Michigan Works! through capacity building in Human-Centered Design, exploration work to identify challenges, and a design cycle to address those challenges.
We don’t enter into this work with prescribed solutions, we don’t hand over a “how-to” document. Rather, Public Agency will build fluency and comfort of the design process, and they did so with West Michigan Works! where they identified pain points and the best ways to work through transitions. It’s one of many projects through which Public Agency is advancing WMCAT’s mission of equitable access to opportunity.
If we neglect to fall in love with the problem and jump to solutions, we also diminish the journey and the transition to new opportunities.
