The other day I was reading a fascinating story about how Lawren Smithline, a Ph.D. mathematician with the Center for Communications Research, cracked a 200+ year-old cipher originally written to Thomas Jefferson by his friend Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Patterson thought the cipher was indecipherable, and until now it has been. But through a series of steps much too complicated for my mortal brain, Dr. Smithline broke the code. Oddly, however, the process Smithline used somewhat mirrors the process I recommend in When Growth Stalls to help struggling companies return to the growth curve.

It’s called “dynamic programming,” and it’s characterized by breaking complicated problems down into smaller pieces, solving them one at a time, and then putting them back together again. When a company is struggling it’s usually because of a fairly complex set of circumstances, many of which may not even be apparent. But by using a “dynamic programming” approach, the problem can be broken down into understandable and manageable pieces. I’ve seen it happen over and over through the course of my career.

I guess it’s not so odd after all that mathematics and business share common logic. While business isn’t quite as predictable as mathematics, the problems we as business people face tend to fall into certain patterns. And solving them takes the willingness to think critically and to persevere over time.

If you’re facing a stalled growth cipher of your own these days, don’t give up. Follow the process I recommend in When Growth Stalls and you’ll be back on the road to growth in a whole lot less than 200 years. Jefferson never did solve Patterson’s cipher, but he already knew the answer: “In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events…”