Reverse Problem Solving
The question that turns every goal into a plan that holds
Written by Kledis Brahimi, Founder of DolceVita Hospitality · 13 pages
When you set a goal, the plan usually comes easily. The harder part is everything that quietly stops the plan from happening: the habits you don't see, the routines that pull you away, the reactions you would rather not admit to, and the way you see yourself.
I wrote this book to give you a tool for finding those things before they find you. It is called Reverse Problem Solving, and it belongs to the advanced leadership work of the DolceVita Method©. The idea is to turn the usual question around. Instead of asking how to succeed, you ask, in detail and without judging yourself, how you would make sure you fail. The answers are often uncomfortable and almost always useful.
The book moves in four steps. First you will see why the reverse question works. Then you will meet its four levels, from what you do down to who you believe you are. After that comes a step-by-step method you can use on any goal, and finally a worked example from a hotel department.
Keep a notebook beside you as you read. The lists you write here are the material of the whole method, and you will come back to them.
What’s inside
01
Chapter 1
The reverse question
Turn the question around, and the obstacles you could not see start to name themselves.
- Two ways to ask about a goal
- Why the reverse question works
02
Chapter 2
The four levels of sabotage
You don't ask one question. You ask four, and each one goes deeper than the one before.
- Level 1: behavioural sabotage
- Level 2: environmental sabotage
- Level 3: emotional and psychological sabotage
- Level 4: identity sabotage
03
Chapter 3
Reverse Problem Solving in practice
Six steps take you from a written goal to a roadmap built out of your own sabotage list.
- The process, step by step
- What an inversion looks like
04
Chapter 4
A worked example
Here is the whole method applied to one concrete goal, from the reverse question to the roadmap.
- The goal
- Behavioural sabotage
- Environmental sabotage
- Emotional sabotage
- Identity sabotage
- Inverting the list
- The essence
05
Where to go from here
Reverse Problem Solving is one of the leadership tools in the DolceVita Method©, which is taught to hotel teams and to the managers who lead them. You can read more about it at dolcevitahospitality.com/method.
Kledis Brahimi
Kledis Brahimi built his path inside hotels in Italy and abroad, among them Bulgari Hotel Milano, Armani Hotel Milano and Palazzo Versace Dubai. In 2022 he founded DolceVita Hospitality in Milan, which works with hotels and hotel groups on the guest experience and teaches hotel teams the DolceVita Method©.
The other ebooks
- Where Does The Guest Experience Begin?The inner work behind every stay a guest never forgets
- Foundations of Emotional Intelligence in HospitalityLead the feeling, and the team follows
- The Veteran Frame©Lead with calm when reality doesn’t cooperate
- Transformo©Change what you expect, and you change what happens
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