Methodology
Problem Solving Isn’t A Talent, It’s A Skill
Our philosophy that helps you achieve your goals and live your best life.
Methodology
There isn’t one right decision, but there is a right decision for you.
Each person has their own set of goals, incentives and values. Knowing those critical components of the problem you’re solving takes practice.
Methodology
Together we can help you make your decisions better, faster and easier.
Each person has their own decision-making strengths and limitations. We believe that in working together we can help you solve the pain points in your decision-making to get to successful solutions.
Methodology
We believe strong decisions are rooted in community; no one makes a decision alone.
While it may feel that your decisions are yours alone, there are other stakeholders who are involved. Knowing how to make decisions well with others supports your decision’s success.
Methodology
We believe strong decision makers unleash more courageous problem solvers.
While you solve problems everyday, building confidence and conviction that you can create good outcomes is not easy.
With our clients we’ve tackled:
- Delegating responsibility to a senior leadership team
- Expanding a national business globally
- Reinvigorating a senior leadership team’s collaboration
- Launching a PostDoc’s idea into a profitable company
- Weighing options in a family’s difficult medical decision
- Leading a family through their first college selection process
- Navigating a mid-live career change
- And so many more!
The AREA Method
Cheryl created The AREA Method to manage uncertainty and bias when facing the hard problems in our lives. It provides a step-by-step process to ensure you include important perspectives and stakeholders, conduct rigorous research, thoughtful analysis and strength-test your path forward. The result: greater confidence and conviction in your solution.
The letters of AREA stand for Absolute, Relative, Exploration and Exploitation, and Analysis.
Absolute
Focuses on primary, unfiltered information straight from the source.
Relative
Shifts to external viewpoints—secondary sources connected to the subject.
Exploration and Exploitation
Fuels creativity: Exploration broadens research through interviews and unconventional sources, while Exploitation turns inward, challenging personal biases and assumptions.
Analysis
synthesizes everything, bringing clarity and structure to complex decisions.
With AREA, instead of a chaotic mix of research, analysis and gut instinct, you’ll have a structured, collaborative, and holistic decision-making system with guardrails against faulty thinking. The result is an evidence-based decision that includes your important stakeholders so that you arrive at a confident decision with a good chance of success.
Problem Solver Profiles
In working with people solving complex problems, Cheryl noticed that people seemed to really dig into some parts of problem solving that were intuitive to them and gloss over other foundational parts of the process. Why did different people seem to prefer different parts of problem solving?
That was the question that led Cheryl to think about the different ways that people solve problems. The result was the Problem Solver Profiles, five decision-making archetypes that represent the dominant ways that people differ in their problem solving.
The Profiles are not about intelligence or personality—they’re about your cognitive habits: what you pay attention to, how you gather and evaluate information, and what drives your decision-making under pressure. Each profile has strengths, challenges, and blind spots. No profile is better than another—but knowing your own (and your team’s) can make you a more confident decision-maker and a more effective collaborator.
The Profiles inform our work in supporting your problem solving by giving you immediate knowledge about yourself and why you make decisions the way you do. It reveals what you value and helps us help you in making decisions with others and also becoming more dynamic yourself.
Decisive fans share their story.
"I have been lucky to witness Cheryl's work on her AREA method over the last few years. To me, it is a work of genius. Cheryl has literally broken the code on all aspects of critical thinking both left and right brain. Her work is for everyone from young to old. It is enduring and will evolve as more people adopt the AREA Method in their toolbox for thinking. Hats off!"
- Joseph Platt, Director at companies including CONSOL Energy and BlackRock Liquidity Funds, a Trustee at Blackrock Collateral Trust and a General Partner at Thorn Partners LP
"Investing in Financial Research is the most pragmatic, in-depth, and comprehensive hands-on guide for conducting investment research available. Einhorn's process will deliver insightful, unbiased, and perceptive investment decisions. The book is a straight forward and systematic guide to clarity."
- Paul Johnson, Adjunct Professor of Finance, Columbia Business School, Columbia University, and co-author of Pitch the Perfect Investment
"Why wasn't there a book like this when I started out as a stock market sleuth?"
- Bill Alpert, Investigative Reporter, Barron’s
"In an era dominated by algorithms, people have stopped learning how to think for themselves. Cheryl Strauss Einhorn's Investing in Financial Research is the antidote, providing a system that will train you to analyze and synthesize like the experts."
- Jesse Eisinger, Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist and Senior Reporter, ProPublica
"Investing in Financial Research should sit on every investor's bookshelf between Graham's The Intelligent Investor and other seminal finance textbooks. It addresses a key gap in the finance literature, by explaining how to conduct financial research using a structured, replicable process that addresses the incomplete, imperfect, and often biased information we encounter in the 'real world.' I wish I learned this content earlier in my career--All of my employees will be receiving a copy of this book."
- David McCombie III, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of McCombie Group, a private investment firm
“I am a big fan of Cheryl’s work and I absolutely loved this book. My favorite line is on page 41, “The unifying theme of these decisions is that they are issues that are important enough to merit a research process and difficult enough to benefit from one.” Cheryl provides a system for making really tough, important decisions. Not only will I use this process myself, but I will have everyone in my company read this book so that they too can be exposed to the AREA method.”
- Kristen Hadeed, author Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong
“Human beings are surprisingly bad at making decisions in complex modern environments. For most of us, therefore, a well-conceived, disciplined decision process is essential. Problem Solved clearly and effectively presents one of the best such processes available. It is invaluable.”
- Bruce Greenwald, best-selling author, Value Investing and Robert Heilbrunn Professorship of Finance and Asset Management, Columbia Business School
“Effective problem solving in our daily lives requires orderly thinking. Cheryl Einhorn shows us a way to do it in a short, clearly written book. Her lessons are organized around case studies that are free of jargon and to the point. In fact, her case studies are short novels that draw the reader into the dilemmas her characters face. They provide wonderful illustrations of how to go about making difficult decisions. Her book is a ‘must read’ those of us facing major decisions about our personal and professional futures.”
- John Campbell, former United States Ambassador to Nigeria
“Impressively well written, exceptionally well organized, and informatively presented, Problem Solved: A Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions with Confidence and Conviction is an effective and practical life-enhancing read from cover to cover.”
- Midwest Book Review
“This is an essential book for anyone who needs to make strategic or complex decisions. As a Silicon Valley AI professional, I research and consume copious amounts of information on the topic of AI. What's unique about this book is that it applies decision theory to the complex field of AI in realistic and practical ways. It serves as a guidebook and thought-leadership resource on decision making so that YOU stay in control and get the best outcomes possible by taking advantage of the power of AI, and avoiding traps that are otherwise hard to avoid.”
- Jason Feinsmith, Managing Director, DataOpsConsulting.AI