Solving Wicked Problems with Wonder: A More Human Way to Innovate
One morning out back, I watched a titmouse bird fly in wide, swooping U-shapes from the woods to the feeder and back again. The movement of the titmouse caught my eye.
Such patterns might inspire someone with a mind like Da Vinci to invent a new version of hang gliding—arguably human beings’ first “extreme sport.”
Everyday innovation is often a glimpse away if we’re willing not only to open our eyes but also to foster our boundary-crossing curiosity. How we see shapes how we think. And if we practice changing how we see in wondrous ways, we can change how we think through challenges at work, in business, and in leadership. Everything worth pursuing, after all, is a practice.
Many of the problems worth solving are complex and change, resisting every solution, no matter how long we look.
A client’s business model, for instance, is complex. It involves neuroscience, polyvagal theory, academic research, mindfulness applications, and the founder’s distinct spiritual vibe—all applied to revolutionizing how educators serve neurodivergent students.
Maybe you can relate. Your business, organization, or life likely involves a lot of disparate parts. How to cohere the model, brand story, and messaging in a fresh, captivating, and elevating way?
Branding pioneer, Marty Neumeier, calls these wicked problems. Not wicked in a moral sense, but in their complexity.
So, how do you solve a wicked problem? Let’s find out below.
Resist the Rush to Fix
Most of us aren’t used to staying with complex problems for long before we find easy fixes. We even try to solve problems that don’t exist.
I’ve witnessed a school district’s board hire armed guards in elementary schools despite community protest when no issue had been identified or assessed.
Our brains prefer simplicity. Psychologists call this bias “simplification bias” because we tend to ignore details and choose easier options. But as fables remind us the easy route may not always be the safest.
Wicked problems rarely respond to force, no matter how brilliant the strategy. As Marty Neumeier reminds us, they “don’t easily yield to hard analysis” or logic but are “likely to be solved”more likely to give up their secrets to observation, intuition, and imagination.”
This holistic approach is also buttressed by what Daniel Pink calls “Symphony.” It’s the ability to step back, take in the full picture, and spot surprising connections across parts that seem unrelated.
At Tracking Wonder, we’ve found that both of these mindsets – Symphony and Wonder make space for fresh insight.
So what does that look like in practice?
How do you begin to think and see in ways that allow for what doesn’t yet exist?
Problem-Tracking Before Problem-Solving
At our UNPLUGGED+UNBOUND Immersive Retreat, 12 change-makers from diverse backgrounds convene. In the middle of the multi-day experience, we spend a full day tracking a problem before attempting to find solutions to it.
We attempt to define what the real problem is through problem sentences and problem statements. These are problems tied to participants’ businesses, creative endeavors, and/or next-chapter life navigation.
We test out versions of the problem statement. We uplevel a problem to its broader cultural context so we light up our mission and devotion. But then we “down” level each problem, too, so we can define a version of a problem that
-the person deeply cares about,
-cares about seeking solutions to, and
-can feasibly act on making such solutions real.
In other words, can you actually develop a solution to this problem, or are your ideals or vision beyond your or your team’s talents or capacity?
We take walks with the problem and its versions. We seek new associative ways to imagine a problem. Later that day each person goes through a series of round robins in which they practice speaking out a version of their problem statement.
By day’s end, they’re kind of blown away that they’ve paid attention mostly to just one problem – and to hearing other’s problem statements – for several hours off and on.
Practices That Invite Wonder (Even When You Don’t Have the Answer)
Repeated studies show that experiences of wonder widenyour peripherial vision while fear can close it down. Fear activates parts of the nervous system and brain that literally can limit our ability to detect insights and novel combinations so we can come up with novel and useful solutions. So we must learn to harness fear’s energy.
When you give yourself to Wonder, it creates an open space that makes you stop trying to control everything and start sensing your way through.
At this point, the marginal felt mind wakes up. The marginal felt mind is the quiet place where thoughts, images, and somatic sensations begin to meet without needing to make sense right away.
At a recent retreat I led, a writer and university professor pulled me aside. She described how her back-to-back Zoom days had trained her eyes to see only two feet ahead. “It’s like tunnel vision,” she said. But by Day Two, after practicing simple wonder-tracking exercises, her face lit up. “I feel like my eyes are popping open. Everything’s more vivid.”
Like that professor, if you want to see more, feel more, solve problems, or create new ideas these wonder exercises are the right place to start.
1. Name-Drop and Shape-Sense
Soften your gaze. Let your eyes land gently on a nearby object. It could be a mug, a leaf, the edge of your notebook. Follow its outline with your eyes. Now close them. Imagine the shape from memory. Reopen and look again. Ask yourself
‘What’s different?’ ‘What detail shows up now that didn’t before?’
2. Re-name the Ordinary
Take a small object on your desk. Ask it questions: What other thing shares this shape? If it had a backstory, what would it be? If it were a person at a dinner party, what would it say? Give it a new, metaphor-rich name.
This simple practice helped one creative team see their product not just as a tool, but as a “bridge”—a reframing that shifted their entire marketing approach.
3. Cross-Pollinate Curiosity
Buy a magazine you’d never normally pick up. It could be about fishing, astrophysics, or parenting toddlers. Notice how ideas from a far-off field might echo something on your own.
One founder I coached discovered her ideal market niche.
4. Return to the Why
When a team I advised got stuck in problem loops, we paused. We pulled back and reread their original mission. Within an hour, they stopped spinning and started solving. Sometimes, the deepest clarity comes not just from remembering why you started at all but from returning to it fully.
Final Thought
You will not always have things figured out. None of us do. But when you practice seeing and thinking in these ways, you’ll uncover new possibilities—whether for wicked problems or everyday joys.
Everything, including insights, like the titmouse’s flight, flits by. But maybe just maybe every once in a while you’ll have a William Blake moment:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Why not? So much is possible. Together.
That’s how you become a tracker of wicked problems.
Try one of these exercises this week. Which one impacts your thinking the most? I’d love to hear from you.
I hope you find something useful in today’s Wonder Blog article. Share this article with someone who could use a dose of wonder.
Here are some other articles you might find useful:
Unlocking Impactful Creative Ideas Through Radical Openness
Tapping into Creative Collaboration
The Role Core Values Play in Strategy Execution
