#577 How to solve tame, critical and wicked work problems

**Helen** (0:00)
Hi, everybody, it is Helen from the Squiggly Careers Podcast. And before today's episode starts, I wanted to let you know about something that Sarah and I have created for the summer.
We are going to be launching a series all about a career well spent. We're going to release four episodes, one every Tuesday, and it's going to be us in conversation with an expert who can give us a different perspective on what it means to have a career well spent. We'll talk about longevity, we'll talk about relationships, we'll talk about time, we'll talk about making a difference. We wanted this to be a community learning moment too. So on Thursdays, we're going to have a LinkedIn Live where you can bring your questions, you can bring your reflections, and we'll discuss the episodes together as a community.
All the links you need are going to be in the Squiggly Careers newsletter. So if this sounds like something you want to get involved in, and we really, really hope you do, it's all free and it'll be a great learning moment, then all you need to do is sign up for the newsletter. Just go to squigglynewsletter.com, that's squigglynewsletter.com, and we will send you everything you need to know to get involved. But for now, let's get on with today's episode.

**Sarah** (1:09)
Aim needs the right process, critical needs the right response, wicked needs the right mindset.

**Helen** (1:17)
What we're going to do is talk about the three types of problems from Keith Grint's work when I talk about what they are, how you can spot them, what they might sound like if you've got one of these problems, and probably most importantly, what you do to solve them.

**Sarah** (1:31)
You know, when you're trying to think like, well, why would I spend time figuring out what type of problem this is? It's like, well, almost if you haven't figured out the type of problem, you might try and solve it in the wrong way, and you sort of waste time and energy. What is good about all of these different types of problems? I know that this is a really learnable skill because I learned the critical problem-solving skill.

**Helen** (1:53)
Problem-solving, for example, is a no-regret skill. It doesn't really matter what is going to happen in the world. Invest in that skill, you're going to have no regrets.

**Sarah** (2:06)
Hi, I'm Sarah.

**Helen** (2:07)
And I'm Helen.

**Sarah** (2:08)
And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance from a person, a place, an object, even a word when I get my way. And we turn that curiosity into useful action for you and your Squiggly career.
And this is one of our episodes in partnership with Post-It Note, which we always find exciting. But I think we used them loads before, and now we just use them even more.

**Helen** (2:30)
I feel like it's just given us an excuse. And also, I mean, I've got to bite you. I was in the car with Gareth, my husband, the other day. She's like, do you remember when you just like going into stationery shops all the time? Staples. I'll be particular. And I just used to buy loads of Post-It Notes. But I feel like maybe I paused and I just I started to use the same Post-It Notes. But now this has given me a new lease of life. Oh, my gosh. A new lease of life. My favorite, genuinely my new favorite Post-It Note.

**Sarah** (2:55)
The transparent ones?

**Helen** (2:56)
No.

**Sarah** (2:57)
Oh, I love those.

**Helen** (2:57)
I do too. But which I didn't have before this partnership, the dispenser. Oh, the little dispenser.

**Sarah** (3:06)
It's got little tabs with the little tabs.

**Helen** (3:08)
And you just pull out the Post-It Note from it.

**Sarah** (3:10)
Oh, you're talking. So I was talking about, you're probably meant to do this more professionally than we're doing.

**Helen** (3:16)
It is very genuine.

**Sarah** (3:16)
I was talking about the small dispenser where it dispenses like the books, tabs that you would put in books to be like, oh, I need to go back to that page. You're talking about the big dispenser. I've probably got yours.

**Helen** (3:27)
That's probably why.

**Sarah** (3:29)
I'm going to get one now.

**Helen** (3:30)
So normal Post-It Notes, and they're like Zed Post-It Notes. So you pull one out and then your next one's there. So you can just like, honestly, I sit there. They bring me a lot of joy. Anyway, more practically, we are going to talk about how Post-It Notes can be useful for the topic we're talking about today. So Sarah mentioned that sometimes she gets her way to talk about words like oracy, which was last week's podcast, which was, I really enjoyed talking about it.