Problem Solving: A Practical Framework
Steven Campbell-Harris
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
As a philosopher, facilitator, and writer, Steven specialises in helping businesses and professionals unlock their full potential by improving how they think. At The School of Life and Philosophy at Work, he empowers individuals and teams to solve problems more effectively, make better decisions, and work more cohesively. His sessions are designed to be practical and engaging, offering actionable insights that participants can immediately apply to their work and lives.
All sessions by Steven →Many of us think of our ‘problems’ in a very limiting way- as things that are broken which need to be fixed. Yet considered more broadly, a problem is just anything in our lives that could be better than it currently is.
Every day we face varying problems; from simple issues such as an overflowing sink, to more difficult challenges like a strained relationship with a colleague. As the philosopher Karl Popper observed, ‘All life is problem solving.’
This session will leave you with the confidence to lean into your problems (rather than just put up with them) and equip you with clear practical tools to get started solving them straight away.
During the expert session, Steven Campbell-Harris engages the audience through interactive exercises, Q&A sessions, and live demonstrations.
shift your mindset to see problems as opportunities for growth and innovation.
learn how to avoid reactive thinking and address problems with clarity.
follow a proven four-step process to define, analyse, test, and refine solutions for any situation.
In this expert session, Steven Campbell-Harris provides valuable insights on enhancing problem-solving skills for personal and professional growth. Steven introduces himself as a philosopher and writer, specializing in assisting teams and organizations to boost their critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities.
He explains that effective problem solving involves improving any situation with the potential for improvement. The importance of focusing on the root cause rather than jumping to quick solutions is emphasized.
Campbell-Harris discusses how humans often make hasty judgments based on assumptions and interpretations, which can result in misdiagnosed problems. He encourages participants to state problems neutrally, observing situations without judgment, enabling a clearer understanding and effective solutions.
Using various examples, Campbell-Harris highlights the importance of being specific and neutral when defining problems. Participants are then invited to share their own problem statements neutrally. The expert session continues with discussions on identifying causes, considering potential blind spots in thinking, and generating multiple possible causes for each problem statement.
To effectively identify causes, Campbell-Harris suggests approaching problem-solving like scientists, considering simple and complex explanations, internal and external factors, and causes related to individuals and systems. He emphasizes the importance of looking beyond personal biases and assumptions to find overlooked causes.
Participants are then guided through an interactive process, identifying causes and prioritizing them based on controllability and influence. The session concludes with a discussion on balancing acceptance and driving change within organizations, proposing thoughtful approaches to maximize impact in both professional and personal lives.
No prior knowledge is assumed. It is built for a general working audience, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction. What the hour itself covers: Many of us think of our ‘problems’ in a very limiting way- as things that are broken which need to be fixed. Yet considered more broadly, a problem is just anything in our lives that could be better than it currently is.
Steven Campbell-Harris is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.0 out of 5, across 31 responses, and rate Steven personally 4.3 out of 5.
It is interactive, and the block higher up on this page says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.
It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Steven, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.
A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.
The session is delivered in English. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.
No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.
We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.
You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.
In today’s fast-changing world, learning can no longer depend solely on formal training or external direction.
We often think innovation begins with a brilliant idea, but the real breakthrough usually comes earlier.
Generative AI is transforming knowledge work. But while the technology feels revolutionary, the underlying challenge is not new.
"People will forget what you said... but people will never forget how you made them feel," - Maya Angelou This hands-on workshop…
Psychological Safety is a well documented driver of high performance in teams and organisations.
How do successful people, teams, and organisations become even more successful?
- Session available on-site only - Sometimes, the way we approach a problem becomes the problem itself, but we may not be aware…
In a world of uncertainty, we cannot always control all the bad things that happen to us, but we can control the way that we…
At this point, the integration of AI in the workplace seems inevitable as many professionals are using it daily.