Problems are a Gift, Feat. John Coffman

A Forest Fire Worth Running Toward

Early in one engineer’s career, a phone call came from the president of a contractor working on a nuclear power plant, asking what it would take to bring him back to help with a struggling job. When the number offered came back at more than double his current salary, it was clear something serious was going on.

An area manager gave him the advice that changed everything: nobody makes an offer like that unless it is a genuine forest fire. But, he said, if you go in and solve the problem, you will get a gift you will not believe, because the lessons learned solving a problem that big will apply for the rest of your career. That advice turned out to be exactly right, and it shaped decades of work that followed.

The Real Pain: Avoiding the Hot Stove

The real pain shows up constantly in construction leadership: people sensing a serious problem on a project and instinctively keeping their distance from it, the way someone avoids touching a hot stove. Nobody wants to get burned, so the instinct is to not look too closely, not ask too many questions, and hope it resolves itself.

That instinct is completely understandable. It is also exactly backwards from what actually builds a career.

The Failure Pattern: Treating Problems Like Something to Escape

The failure pattern is straightforward: shying away from the hard, messy, high-stakes assignments in favor of whatever feels safer and more comfortable. It feels protective in the moment, and it quietly closes off the exact experiences that build real expertise.

There is a well-known idea in Lean thinking worth sitting with directly: problems are not actually the problem. The real problem is believing you do not have any. Hiding from a problem does not make it disappear, it just delays the moment it has to be dealt with, usually at a higher cost than if it had been surfaced and addressed early.

A few signs tend to show up when a team or a leader is avoiding problems rather than solving them, and they are worth checking honestly:

• Difficult assignments or troubled projects get passed along or avoided rather than volunteered for.
• A known issue gets quietly monitored instead of clearly defined, investigated, and addressed head-on.
• Leaders hope a problem will resolve on its own rather than gathering the data needed to actually understand it.

This Isn’t About Being Fearless, It’s About Having a Process

None of this requires being naturally fearless or unusually brave. Solving hard problems is a learnable skill, built through real study and repeated practice, not some innate trait a handful of people are simply born with.

Starting with smaller problems and deliberately working up to bigger ones builds this capability over time, the same way any other skill gets developed. The people who become known as “the person who fixes things” were not born that way, they built it one problem at a time.

The 5.5-Inch Survey Error and the PGL

Here is what that process looks like under real pressure. On a guideway project, a station was discovered to be five and a half inches out of position, the result of a falsified coordinate system from a surveyor outside the project team. Airport security restrictions meant the team could not simply resurvey through the usual points, adding another layer of difficulty to an already serious problem.

Rather than panicking, the response was to gather real data first, surveying the entire curb and gutter system around the affected area, even working through a holiday to get it done. Once the actual root cause and full scope were understood, the team could ask the right question: what do we actually need, a smooth ride with the profile grade line properly aligned. The solution turned out to be a redesigned spiral alignment that preserved the profile grade line without demolishing significant existing work. The problem got solved because the team refused to guess and insisted on real data before acting.

Why It Matters: The Reward Compounds

This matters because the people who consistently step into hard problems become the ones organizations call on again and again. Nearly every contracting company has “that person,” the one who gets sent in whenever a job is genuinely struggling, and that reputation is built entirely through a track record of solving real problems rather than avoiding them.

The reward is not only financial, though that is often part of it. It is the compounding of hard-won lessons that make every future problem, personal or professional, feel more manageable by comparison. Once you have solved a genuinely difficult, high-stakes problem, smaller everyday frustrations tend to lose a lot of their power to rattle you.

Teach the Framework: The Problem-Solving Steps

A real process underlies this kind of problem solving, and it can be learned directly. Define the problem clearly, then clarify it further until everyone actually agrees on what is being solved. Define the goal you are actually trying to reach, then identify the true root cause rather than settling for the first plausible explanation. From there, develop a real action plan, execute it, evaluate the results honestly, and continuously improve based on what you learn.

Two habits make this process actually work. First, get the real data before doing anything else, every number, every measurement, double-checked and verified, rather than acting on assumptions or partial information. Second, write the plan down. If a plan cannot be written down clearly, it has not actually been figured out yet, it is still just a vague idea waiting to become a real plan.

A few practical markers separate a genuine problem-solving process from guesswork dressed up as action, and they are worth checking directly:

• The actual root cause has been identified and confirmed with real data, not just assumed based on first impressions.
• A written plan exists that the whole team has reviewed and genuinely agreed to support.
• Progress gets evaluated honestly against the plan, with adjustments made as new information comes in.

Turning This Into Daily Practice

One of the most effective habits for surfacing hidden problems early is remarkably simple: on a regular basis, ask the team directly what is keeping them awake at night. That single question tends to surface real, specific concerns that might otherwise stay buried until they become much bigger emergencies.

It is also worth remembering that someone coming in fresh to a struggling project can often see the real picture faster than the people who have been living inside it the whole time, not because they are smarter, but because they are not yet used to the way the problem quietly grew around them. Bringing in fresh eyes, or deliberately stepping back to look at your own project as an outsider would, often reveals what has become invisible from the inside.

Connecting It Back to Building People, Not Just Projects

None of this happens without leaders willing to study problem solving as a real, teachable skill rather than assuming it is something people either have or do not have. Building that capability deliberately, starting small and working up, is exactly the kind of training that turns a good superintendent into the person every struggling project eventually calls.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow, including how to build real problem-solving capability instead of just managing around problems.

The Challenge

So here is the challenge worth carrying onto your next tough assignment: the next time a real problem shows up, resist the instinct to avoid it. Gather the data, define it clearly, and go get the gift waiting inside it.As Jason recalled hearing from Taiichi Ohno, “Problems aren’t a problem. The only problem is thinking that we don’t have problems.” On we go.

FAQ

Why does Jason describe problems as “gift-wrapped packages”?

Solving a genuinely difficult problem builds skills and lessons that carry forward for the rest of a career, which is the real reward hidden inside the difficulty. The harder the problem, the more valuable the lesson tends to be once it is actually solved.

What are the basic steps in this problem-solving process?

Define the problem, clarify it further, define the actual goal, identify the true root cause, develop a written action plan, execute it, evaluate the results honestly, and continuously improve. Getting real data before acting and writing the plan down clearly are the two habits that make every step actually work.

Why is getting real data so important before trying to solve a problem?

Acting on assumptions or partial information often leads to solving the wrong problem entirely. Verified, complete data ensures the root cause identified is the real one, rather than just the most obvious or convenient explanation.

Why can someone new to a project sometimes see its problems more clearly than the team that has been there all along?

People who have been immersed in a project for a long time often stop noticing how a problem has grown around them over time, the way a parent might not notice a child’s gradual growth day to day. A fresh set of eyes, without that gradual adjustment, often sees the real scope of a problem more clearly.

Is problem-solving a natural talent, or can it actually be learned?

It is a learnable skill built through real practice, not an innate trait some people simply have. Starting with smaller problems and deliberately working up to bigger, more complex ones builds this capability steadily over time.