Think It Through and Ask About it, too

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The best leaders solve more problems than they cause. That may be more obvious than common.

I've kept a journal for most of my life. In that series of journals are accounts of decisions made by leaders often without consulting the constituents they involve, usually with a sense of urgency that distorts all common sense. Lives disrupted, business interrupted, customers stranded -- all in the name of profit and expediency.

Of course profit is necessary. Naturally, we share a sense of urgency to get things done before everything changes. But it is ever so easy to cause more problems than we solve if we don't stop to think them thru.

Do the proper analysis. Create mutually beneficial solutions. Engage everyone involved.

I never met a leader who wanted to be remembered as terrible, but I sure have met plenty who are.

-- doug smith

Comments

Better Feedback

The trouble with feedback is that we don't want it, or if we do we don't know how to give it, and don't know when to start or stop it. Ah, but what if we did? What if we could build a high-feedback culture where people were open to feedback and knew how to put it to immediate use? We can. It takes practice. It takes experience. It takes caring about how we do feedback and who we share it with. Here's one thing you can change immediately that will dramatically improve the feedback frequency on your team: ask for advice more often...and then really listen. Don't even call it feedback. Ask for advice and not only will everyone have some, once you show that you're open to it, they'll ask for advice in return. What's your best tip on giving and receiving feedback? -- doug smith

Right In Front of You

It isn't possible or necessary to solve every problem. Focus on the problem in front of you. Solving that first problem builds momentum and experience for solving the next problem. You'll never solve them all, but imagine how much better things will be after you've solved the ones right in front of you. -- doug smith

The Team You Deserve

Whether you are a great leader or something less, the reality is that you will build the team that you deserve. High performance teams develop accountability, excellence, and positive results. High performance leaders develop that and more through clarity, courage, creativity and compassion. Leaders need clarity around their vision, their mission, and their goals. Teams need to know which direction to move, direction provided with clarity. Leaders need the courage to stand against obstacles, to resist temptation to take the easy way out, to fully back their people. Teams need leaders with the courage of their convictions and with visible assertive support of their team. Creativity gives a leader the ability to generate new ideas, to innovate in a constantly moving environment, to think of new ways to inspire and motivate their teams. Teams, equipped with creativity, never get stale. They find the fun in what they do and they convert that fun into positive results. Since leaders deal wi...

Real Time Problem Solving

I've had the joy of working with many talented leaders recently. Here are some in-action photos of them hard at work solving problems and achieving their goals.

Creative Trust

How's your creative impulse? Do you roll with it, or resist it? Do you chase it, or embrace it? Creative intuition comes and goes. When we grab it, we instantly have something to work with. When we let it pass, it fades away. If you don't trust the creative impulse it might stop trusting you. Where will you be then? Trust your creative impulse. -- doug smith

Avoid the Trap

It's easy to fall into it. A juicy bit of information about someone you know hits the air. Do you comment? Do you defend? Do you ignore the situation? Gossip is a trap that tricks our tongues into poisoning ourselves. Honor the absent, don't talk about them. If you wouldn't say it TO them, keep it to yourself. Gossip is a trap; don't fall in. -- doug smith

Decisions and Solutions

The decisions you make during problem solving are as important as the solutions you develop, even if they do not lead to solutions. Decisions around relationships, around results, around permanence and transition. Do you want everyone to be better off because of the resolution of the problem, or do you just want a quick fix? Do you value how people respond to your efforts? Do you really know more about the impact and urgency of the situation than the people who will be most affected by your solutions? Decide carefully. You know that, and I know that, but sometimes we do forget, don't we? -- doug smith

Consensus on Change

Which is harder to accomplish, change, or consensus on the change? With most people agreeing and supporting a change, the change would certainly be easier. But is it really easier to achieve that consensus? Isn't it faster to just impose the change whether people like it or not? No. Consensus for change is tougher to achieve than change. If you take the time and make the effort to achieve that consensus, the chances are that you are making a better, more resilient change. There's no need to manipulate people who see the value of the change. -- d oug smith

When The Robots Take Over

We've been fascinated by the possibility for decades of robots running the world. It starts simply enough, assembling products, calculating odds, writing emails, correcting grammatical errors...hundreds of tasks. And then, as we've seen in so many movies, it goes too far and we lose control. We go from being the masters to being the puppets. That's no fun. And, it's not a certainty, either. Why ever surrender our free will? As hard as that is to believe, many people seem to be fine with that. Convenience could be worth any price to some people, but not to those who have thought it through. We need our human touch. We need our critical thinking. We need our spiritual connections. We need each other. When the robots take over you're going to need all those people you thought you didn't need. Lay-offs are surrender. Use any tool you want as much as you want -- there's nothing inherently evil about AI. But keep those human connections. They are what makes it ...

What's Possible

Problems that seem unsolvable at the micro-level may be manageable at their macro-level. Check your perspective. Gauge your distance. Focus on what is possible. Ask the questions you'd ask about any mystery. What's going on? How did we get here? Where do we want to go? What other questions do you ask in order to move from impossible to possible? -- doug smith

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