[Neurons] 2026 Neurons #6 THE META PROBE FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING

Sun Feb 1 19:05:09 EET 2026

From: L. Michael Hall

2026 Neurons #5

February 2, 2026

Problem Solving Expertise #7

THE META PROBE FOR

PROBLEM-SOLVING

What you have to know, and not only 'know,' but fully realize at a feeling
level, is that all problems occur in someone's mind.  They do not exist 'out
there' in the world.  Of course, this is so counter-intuitive for most
people, it takes some time to settle in.  Gerald Nadler and Shozo Hibino
said this in their 1990 book, Breakthrought Thinking:

"Problems are reflections of states of mind. ... A problem is a condition or
set of circumstances that a person thinks should be changed (p. 37).

Here are two phenomena.  First, "a condition or a set of circumstances" and
second, thinking, what "a person thinks" should be changed or different.
What is external are the circumstances 'out there' in the world that we want
to be different.  It is the wanting it to be different that creates for us a
problem-a gap between our present state and our longed for desired state.
Where is that gap?  The gap is in our heads-in our thinking about the
external circumstances.

Once you come to terms with this fully and emotionally (somatically,
kinesthetically), you develop a deep intuitive sense that problems always
and only occur in a human's mind.  The saving grace in this perspective is
that it prevents you from getting confused and working on the wrong problem.
Yet working on the wrong problem is one of the biggest obstacles to
effective problem-solving.  How many times have you done that?  How many
times have I marvelously and wonderfully solved the wrong problem?  More
often than I like to admit!  In the past I have been incredible about
solving symptoms (my own and those of others).  Those were great bandaides,
but sadly, only bandaches which did not address the real problem. 

For the real problem we always have to perform a meta probe.  We have to
take the person inside to his or her Meta Place and to the landmarks of the
mind because that is where the problem exists.  This is the challenge in the
5-Minute Conversation that lies at the essence of the 5-Minute Manager.  To
get there you have to learn to cut through all of the noise that covers up
and hides the real problem.  You will want to keep your eye on the ball-the
meaning constructs that give birth to the problem.

How?  Think about stepping through the person's portal into her mental
world, the landscape of your mind where she is the author of her constructs
and therefore problems and solutions.  There you will find her semantic
associations, representations that make up the movie she plays in her mind,
her house of linguistics by which she constructs concepts and beliefs and
all sorts of meaning formulas, and there you will find her assumptive frames
for herself, the world, knowledge, and being itself.

All of that describes the Meta Place.  And if you know about the Meta Place
and the primary Landmarks of the Mind- the thinking processes that create
our sense of what's real (reality).  By taking someone inside to these
landmarks, you will be able to facilitate the discovery of the real problem
and simultaneously, of a legitimate solution.  How specifically will this
taking-someone-inside work? 

           Invite the person to engage in a thought experiment.  "I want
you to imagine yourself in the situation where the problem occurs and this
time imagine that the problem has not yet arisen.  You are there, what's
occurring?  Now for the problem to arise, what has to happen?"

           With this thought experiment (or any other), you can then
encourage a specific experiential probe: How do you talk to yourself when
the problem is not there?  How to you talk to yourself when you notice the
problem?

           You can use a sentence stem and ask the person to complete the
sentence with 10 or so different endings.  "If I truly and deeply knew that
my value was unconditional and nothing could threaten it or take it away
..."

           When you come upon a defining metaphor, engage it fully and
begin to play with it.  "I feel really stuck in this problem..."   And being
stuck, just how stuck is this?  And what are you stuck in?  How deep are you
stuck in that?  What resource do you need to get out of that stuckness?

Because the problem (the real one) is inside, the person with the problem
has to go inside.  As you invite her on that inward journey, empower her to
engage in one of various meta probes so that together you can identify the
kind of thinking that has created the problem.  The idea of probing also
suggests going deeper (or higher) than just the first meta-level.  It
suggests going to the next meta-level, and the next until you reach the kind
of thinking that has created the problem.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net 

unnamed (3) (2)

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