Almon Brown Strowger noticed he was losing business at his undertakers because a competitor’s wife, who was a telephone operator, would redirect calls for Strowger to her husband’s business. 

Strowger had a problem. He needed to get the calls to his business again but how?

When solving a problem you don’t solve it at the level it was created. You think around the problem and get upstream. 

Strowger later invented the automatic telephone exchange which eliminated the need for operators. By doing this he could get all his calls going to him.

But by now he wasn’t just an undertaker, he was an inventor.

There is no formula in solving problems, it requires you to think.