My firm Keenan Reid Strategies builds 9-figure business models and the financial engines behind them. We help enterprise B2B leaders:

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When your mom asks me what I do, I tell her I help people solve problems and make decisions. 

After that, she'll probably look at me funny and question my life choices.

Yes, helping people make decisions is a career.

Advisory work is figuring out what matters, processing information to understand different paths to a solution, and helping people make decisions that solve problems.    

After 25+ years doing this work, I’ve learned that problem solving is a skill that you can learn. 

I was trained in the scientific method when I was in college, and then I was trained to follow the hypothesis-driven approach at BCG. 

It doesn’t matter what kind of problem you’re dealing with, the steps are fundamentally the same: 

Let’s double click on each one. 

Not every problem requires hiring an indie consultant – so when it does, you know that the stakes are high. 

In a nutshell, a strategic problem is an unresolved question or critical challenge that impacts an organization’s success. It may impact financial outcomes, business results, customer experience – or if big enough, the strategic direction of the company.

Strategic problems feel difficult to solve because people get overwhelmed in the face of complexities, contributors, and variations that come with them. Then, they freeze.  

When this happens, I see people face four common pitfalls: 

Considering the complexities and the high stakes, you need an objective and thoughtful approach. 

Investing time in using a repeatable process matters because it forces focus, consideration, and assessment. It also involves the people who actually make things happen. 

While having a process looks like extra work at first, it’s a crucial one. 

When people are overwhelmed, they move in an uncoordinated way, which leads to uncontrolled chaos. 

What we want to do is create a process that puts actions in order and moves things from left to right.

This forces us to move in straight lines, while staying in our own lanes, towards solving the problem. 

Remember: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

A process cuts down on time. It’s proven and repeatable, so you’re faster the next time you do it. 

Let me introduce you to my process in strategic problem solving. This works for every kind of strategic problem, small or huge – the only difference is that a huge problem requires more documentation than a small one. 

I’ve simplified it into four steps: frame the problem, visualize insights, enable decisions, and mobilize actions. 

Let’s double click on each one. 

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You can’t solve a problem you don’t know. 

That’s why at this first step, our goal is to gather the context and create a problem statement. In some cases, you need to split the problem statement into smaller, solvable pieces.

I do this in five steps: 

As a long-time consultant, I have developed the capability to learn a business and distill a significant amount of information into critical takeaways in a rapid period of time. 

How did I learn to do this?

I eventually mastered it with time, but the process helped in the beginning. 

I’m a scientist at my core – which means I like to develop hypotheses. 

I find that it’s best to have an assumption about the best solution for each bucket before the assessment begins – I use them as the north star of testing logic. 

At step two, it’s about gathering the data and prepping to assess. There are two ways to do this: 

From all that data, you will analyze and visualize findings – usually using a graphic.

Charts are the best for visualizing numerical data, but tables and columns are great for showcasing qualitative findings. 

Step two is also for identifying the takeaways – were you able to prove or disprove your theory in the beginning? 

A critical (and often overlooked) part of step two is: socializing insights with key stakeholders. You need to do this to get opinions, listen to how they react, and iterate findings into a story that weaves everything together and presents recommendations. 

By the end of this stage, you should have insights and takeaways to present to decision makers.

Now, for the people part of the strategic problem solving. All the work so far has helped you reach a conclusion. But now, your job is to help the decision makers reach their own conclusions and use those to inform their decisions. 

Setting up for these decisions is worth careful preparation. Before anything else, you need to consider a couple of questions first: 

One common mistake that consultants make when presenting findings is that they don’t consider perspectives and preconceptions of decision makers – but this perspective is the most important one, so consultants need to start thinking about what they will expect and ask. 

As a problem solver, our job is to present recommendations in their context. The goal is to reduce mental overload and present the context, along with the recommendations and the why behind them. 

Think of it as telling a story. 

Take the components of the problem that was broken apart, add in the insights reached, and reconstruct them into a framework that communicates the answer. Take what you need, and only what you need. 

Even at this stage, socializing is still part of the process – both between the consultant and the senior stakeholders and amongst the stakeholders themselves. The point is to set up conversations with the right information, allowing executives to do their jobs. 

You are the enabler that guides them to make good business decisions.

With everyone on board, the next step is about getting people to move. 

As the problem solver, it’s time to hand off the baton. The key role is about transitioning the vast context, insights, and knowledge developed to the key implementors. 

They must be informed with the right context, insights, and knowledge about why the answer came to be. 

At this point, you need to follow five steps: 

While my problem-solving process is a reliable spine for most engagements, you can flex around it to fit your client’s situation better. 

The four stages remain consistent. What mostly changes are the emphasis on specific steps. 

But here’s an additional nuance: you customize depth, tools, and pace – you do not customize the sequence. 

Every strategic problem – large or small – still follows the Problem ➡️ Insight ➡️  Decision ➡️ Action framework. 

Smaller problems require lighter documentation. Larger ones demand formal rigor. 

But you never start offering solutions before defining the problem. You never jump to mobilization before a real decision exists. 

That distinction keeps you from sliding back into chaos. 

Strategic problems don’t get solved by working harder – they get solved by working in order. 

When you put actions in sequence and move left to right, you replace chaos with clarity and momentum. 

A repeatable process forces you to stay in your lane, define the problem precisely, engage the right people, and move deliberately toward action. 

That discipline is what improves the quality of your recommendations – and the likelihood they actually get implemented. 

View and download more of our frameworks here.