How to Tell a Problem From a Situation: Seth Godin

IDEO has built a business around solving difficult problems. But problems and situations are not the same thing, argues Seth Godin. And correctly telling them apart is critical. Get it wrong, and you'll spend months pushing on something that was never going to move.

In this conversation, Seth and Mina dig into themes from Seth’s new book The Knot: how to tell a problem from a situation, why naming a problem correctly is a much higher bar than most of us set, and how systems—inside a company, a family, or a culture—work to outlast the people trying to change them.

Related Resources

Seth’s newest book, The Knot: https://seths.blog/theknot

Seth's blog: https://seths.blog

Seth Godin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethgodin/

Human-Centered Systems Thinking, an IDEO U 5-week cohort course: https://ideou.com/products/human-centered-systems-thinking

In This Episode

Timestamps are approximate due to ad breaks.

(00:00) The story of the Gordian knot

(02:27) Seth Godin: 20+ books, the internet's most-read blog, and the book he almost didn't write

(05:05) The book that never sold, Survival Is Not Enough — and why it's still his favorite

(08:54) How a four-hour interview with Mel Robbins turned into The Knot

(11:41) Why he picked a pretzel for the cover of his new book

(16:38) A tangled necklace reveals the real problem, and it's not the necklace

(22:58) A CEO deletes every recurring meeting in the company, on purpose

(27:36) Why briefing a team on the solution instead of the problem backfires

(28:54) The one question Seth asks people to find out if they actually know their problem

(31:22) The engineering assignment that earned an F but won with actual users

(32:50) Problem or situation? The one-line test for telling them apart

(36:30) The day Google shut down Squidoo, his 300,000-person community, overnight

(41:51) Why systems act like they want to outlast you

(45:49) Two ways to move an entrenched system

(43:55) Why "yes, and" and Seth's and/but framing aren't in conflict

(45:01) How to know when you've found the right problem

(46:07) The difference between a manager and a leader

(48:05) Lightning round: books, juggling, and advice for his younger self

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