Advice
The Day My Photocopier Taught Me Everything About Workplace Problem Solving
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Right, so there I was, standing in front of our office photocopier at 8:47 AM on a Wednesday, watching it flash "PC LOAD LETTER" for the third time in ten minutes. The morning presentation to our biggest client was in exactly 73 minutes, and Sandra from accounts was breathing down my neck asking where the bloody handouts were.
This is where most people panic. This is where the average employee calls IT, waits twenty minutes, then blames someone else when the whole thing goes sideways.
But here's what I've learned after seventeen years in corporate Australia: every workplace crisis is actually a masterclass in problem solving disguised as a headache.
That photocopier moment? It became the perfect example of why systematic problem solving beats frantic button-mashing every single time. And mate, I've got stories.
The Real Problem Isn't Usually the Obvious Problem
Back to my photocopier drama. The obvious problem was "machine broken, client unhappy, career potentially over." But here's where experience kicks in—you learn to ask better questions.
Instead of "Why won't this thing work?" I started asking "What do I actually need to achieve here?" Turns out, I needed 47 copies of a presentation. The photocopier was just one solution, not the only solution.
Quick scan of the office revealed:
- Jenny's desktop printer (slower, but reliable)
- The backup machine on Level 3 (two-minute walk)
- The nearby Officeworks (five-minute drive, but guaranteed results)
Problem solved in twelve minutes instead of waiting thirty for the repair technician.
This is classic workplace problem solving—step back from the immediate frustration and reframe the actual requirement. I've seen entire departments get stuck because they're trying to fix the wrong thing.
Take the time our Brisbane office couldn't get their quarterly reports to match head office requirements. Six weeks of back-and-forth emails, three different software consultants, and mounting frustration. The breakthrough came when someone finally asked: "What if we just picked up the phone and talked to head office about what they actually needed?"
Turns out, they'd changed their reporting format months ago and forgotten to tell anyone. One phone call, problem solved.
Pattern Recognition: Your Secret Weapon
Here's something they don't teach you in business school: after you've been around long enough, you start recognising patterns. That client who emails at 4:55 PM on Friday with "urgent" requests? Yeah, they do that every month. The supplier who suddenly has "quality issues" right before contract renewal? Seen it before.
Pattern recognition is probably the most underrated problem-solving skill in Australian workplaces.
I remember working with a manufacturing client in Geelong who was losing sleep over their "random" equipment failures. Three expensive consultants later, still no answers. But when I mapped out the failure dates, they all fell within 48 hours of the night shift supervisor's roster rotation.
Turns out, one particular supervisor had been skipping the pre-shift equipment checks for months. Not maliciously—he genuinely didn't understand their importance. A simple training session solved what looked like a complex technical problem.
The pattern was there all along. Sometimes you just need fresh eyes to spot it.
The "Five Whys" Technique (And Why Most People Stuff It Up)
Everyone's heard of the Five Whys. It's that technique where you keep asking "why" until you get to the root cause. Toyota made it famous, consultants love talking about it, and most Australian businesses implement it terribly.
The problem isn't the technique—it's that people stop at surface-level answers or get distracted by blame.
Real example from my consulting days:
Problem: Customer complaints about delivery delays have increased 40% this quarter.
First Why: Why are deliveries delayed? "Because the drivers are running late."
Second Why: Why are the drivers running late? "Because they're getting stuck in traffic."
Most people stop here and start talking about route optimisation software. But keep going...
Third Why: Why are they getting stuck in traffic? "Because they're leaving later than scheduled."
Fourth Why: Why are they leaving later than scheduled? "Because the loading process is taking longer."
Fifth Why: Why is loading taking longer? "Because we changed warehouse layouts three months ago, and the drivers haven't been retrained on the new system."
Boom. The real problem wasn't traffic or late drivers—it was inadequate change management. One training session fixed a problem that looked like it needed expensive logistics software.
When Problems Aren't Actually Problems
Sometimes the biggest breakthrough comes from questioning whether you're solving the right problem at all.
I worked with a Sydney accounting firm that was convinced they needed better project management training because their deadlines kept slipping. Six months and $15,000 in training later, nothing had improved.
The real issue? Their biggest client was a mining company that consistently submitted incomplete information, then expected miracles when they finally provided the missing data two days before deadline.
The solution wasn't better project management—it was better client management. They implemented a "no incomplete submissions accepted" policy with clear consequences. Problem solved, and they actually improved their relationship with the client because expectations were finally clear.
The Collaboration Factor (And Why It's Not What You Think)
Here's where I'm going to say something that might annoy some people: most workplace problems require collaborative solutions, but collaboration doesn't mean committee meetings.
True collaboration in problem solving means bringing together different perspectives efficiently, not scheduling another bloody workshop.
Best collaborative problem solving I ever witnessed happened in a Perth logistics company. They had a complex inventory discrepancy that was costing them thousands monthly. Instead of forming a task force (corporate speak for "let's have more meetings"), the warehouse manager just started having coffee with one person from each department every Tuesday morning.
Finance person brought data analysis skills. IT person understood the software limitations. Customer service person knew which products caused the most complaints. Procurement person spotted the supplier patterns.
Four Tuesday morning coffees later, they'd identified that their biggest supplier was systematically short-shipping certain items, betting that the receiving team wouldn't catch it among thousands of incoming products.
No PowerPoint presentations, no formal reports, just good coffee and focused conversation.
Technology: The Double-Edged Problem Solver
Look, I love technology as much as the next person, but I've seen too many businesses try to solve people problems with software solutions.
That said, when used appropriately, technology can be brilliant for workplace problem solving. The key is knowing when it's the right tool and when it's just expensive procrastination.
Good technology example: A Melbourne law firm was drowning in document version control issues. Lawyers were working on outdated contracts, paralegal changes were getting lost, and client meetings were becoming embarrassing exercises in "which version are we looking at?"
Cloud-based document management system solved it completely. Not glamorous, but effective.
Bad technology example: A construction company decided their communication problems needed a sophisticated project management platform with task assignments, progress tracking, and automated reporting.
Six months later, half the crew still wasn't using it properly, and the other half was spending more time updating the system than actually building things. The real problem was that their site supervisors were terrible at giving clear instructions, and no amount of software was going to fix that.
Creative Problem Solving: Beyond the Brainstorming Trap
Creative problem solving in the workplace doesn't mean sitting around throwing out random ideas until something sticks. That's just organised chaos with Post-it notes.
Real creative problem solving means approaching problems from angles that haven't been tried yet.
One of my favourite examples involves a restaurant chain that was losing money on their delivery service. Traditional analysis showed they needed to either increase delivery fees (risking customer loss) or reduce delivery areas (limiting growth).
But someone asked a different question: "What if we turned our delivery drivers into mobile customer service representatives?"
Suddenly, delivery became a customer retention tool instead of just a cost centre. Drivers were trained to handle basic complaints, offer feedback forms, and even take orders for future events. Customer satisfaction improved, repeat business increased, and the delivery service became profitable.
Same problem, completely different angle.
The Importance of Following Through (Where Most Solutions Die)
Here's the uncomfortable truth about workplace problem solving: identifying the solution is usually the easy part. Implementation is where most good ideas go to die.
I've lost count of how many brilliant solutions I've seen abandoned because nobody wanted to do the follow-up work. The excitement of the breakthrough moment fades, daily operations take over, and three months later you're back to the same old problems.
Successful problem solving requires boring, systematic follow-through.
This means assigning clear ownership, setting review dates, and actually checking whether the solution is working. Not glamorous, but absolutely essential.
Learning From the Failures
Finally, let's talk about the problems that don't get solved. Because honestly, that's where you learn the most.
I spent six months trying to fix communication issues between two departments that fundamentally didn't respect each other's expertise. Tried everything—mediation sessions, cross-training, even team building activities that everyone pretended to enjoy.
Nothing worked because I was trying to solve a cultural problem with procedural solutions. Sometimes the real answer is recognising that certain people just shouldn't work together, and it's better to restructure responsibilities than force collaboration.
That failure taught me more about organisational dynamics than a dozen successful projects.
The Bottom Line
Workplace problem solving isn't about having all the answers—it's about asking better questions, recognising patterns, and following through systematically.
The photocopier still breaks down occasionally, but now I know it's never really about the photocopier.
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