doug smith training

How does it feel when you miss a goal? It's not fun. It can be discouraging. When it happens to me I have to ask myself what went wrong. Didn't I work hard enough? Was my plan flawed? Even though I do tend to achieve most of my goals, when I miss it hurts.  Feel the hurt. Learn the lesson. Move forward. That's what I tell myself. An unachieved goal need not break you. There are new goals ahead. Keep Going! -- doug smith 

Leadership is service. No matter how strongly you hold a goal, no matter how driven you are to succeed, the purpose of leading is to help. The essential question is "how can I help?" It gets tough when there are deadlines, meetings, deliverables ahead of you. Interruptions feel unproductive. Helping others feels disruptive. Still, however busy we are, the essential question remains "how can I help?" Serving others may not feel productive until you're the one who needs the help. -- doug smith

It's hard to achieve a goal without first identifying a benefit to you of achieving your goal. Identify your motivation. That will get you moving and make ever task related to your goal much easier. -- doug smith

What good are problems? Don't you find them aggravating? Don't you prefer straight paths to achieving your goals? And yet, there they are: problems standing in the way. Since they're there, why not make use of them? Since they're there, why not ask powerful questions that open up learning and identify new possibilities? Problems present platforms to ask powerful questions. So there's that. -- doug smith  

Every argument contains at least one misunderstanding. Why? So often we are in such a hurry to express ourselves that we don't pay attention to what someone else is saying. Or, we confuse style with content. When we find someone's personality abrasive it's easy to disregard anything they have to offer. Right, or wrong. I learned the hard way that none of us ever has the complete picture. Even when our opinion is correct, it is incomplete. Until we see a more complete picture (we may never know all of the details) we would do well to stay curious.  Every argument starts with misunderstandings, and usually stays there. What if we dug deeper? What if we did stay curious? What if we're wrong - how will we know unless we listen? -- doug smith

How long do you like to wait for what you want? The more certain I am about something, the less patient I am. I want what I want and I want it now. But that's not always the best idea. And it usually isn't even possible. Big ideas bring about resistance. Change isn't easy. When people and processes stand in our way, our first impulse is to break on thru. Let the strong survive. Let the resisters catch up or fall away. But -- results are important, and relationship are even more important. After working for many years I've discovered that results (good or bad) tend to be temporary. Relationships? That's up to us. We can do things that build trust (keep our word, consult others before deciding things that impact them, tell the truth) and sustain relationships, or we can take short-cuts that damage those we'd prefer to keep on our side. The trouble with revolutionary solutions to problems is that they break both things and people. And no matter how good the results

What should we do with six thousand years of problems and mistakes? Keep centered, keep solving, keep serving. -- doug smith 

Never stifle the desire to serve. It's what we are here for. -- doug smith  

Centered problem solvers are not discouraged by solutions that did not work. Next! -- doug smith

Collaborative problem solving depends as much on the strength of relationships as it does on the power of the process. Centered problem solvers build their relationships while they challenge their processes. -- doug smith

Start with common ground to tame the mountain of conflict in front of you. The trail may be long, but it is certain. -- doug smith

We could argue absolute truth all day, all week, all year. Let's not. What if there is some element of doubt? What if there are undiscovered truths underneath the surface? We could take the time to experiment and learn along the way. We could conduct dialogues that explore rather than expose, that interrogate rather than interrupt. We could probe instead of poke.  The trouble with absolutes is that if you're wrong you are absolutely wrong. Let's stay curious instead. -- doug smith