Strength and...

Problem solving builds strength and clarity.

-- doug smith

 

Suggested Problem Solving Guidelines

Centered problem solving relies on problem solvers who are focused, mindful, centered individuals. Working collaboratively is easier when the team members are personally fine. Here are some suggested guidelines for working together in a way that helps sustain that sense of centeredness.

Speak and act with clarity, creativity, courage, and compassion.

That's it.

These are also four core strengths of leadership, with the fifth being centeredness (which results from careful attention and development to the other four.)

None of us are perfect at any of these key strengths. Putting them together in focused combination bonds and builds us in ways that are far more difficult otherwise.

Clarity, creativity, courage, compassion, and centeredness: it's the heart of centered problem solving.

-- doug smith

 

Use These Four Strengths

What do you think it all comes down to?

When it comes to leadership, and problem solving, I believe that we have the ability to develop four core strengths (five, if you count centering and balancing all four). Developing those strengths helps us accomplish our goals, solve problems, lead and live more effectively.

Create more balance. Create more focus. Identify ways to develop these five core strengths.

How many problems could stand up to you using all of your clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion?

-- doug smith

How to Prevail

If you stay centered, in the midst of a problem then that problem doesn't stand a chance.

You will prevail.

Focus. Stay centered. Breathe in and thru your unlimited supplies of clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion.

You will prevail.

The problems meant for you are also meant to be solved.

You will prevail.

-- Doug Smith

Go For Transformational Solutions

If a problem is threatening to put you, your team, or your organization in danger, it cannot be ignored. Average solutions won't help. Easy answers won't be enough. The toughest problems, the ones that could put you out of business, require transformational solutions.

Combinations of clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion when you are developing ideas and working your problem lead to transformational solutions - the ones that change the nature of the game and put the problem -- not you -- out of business.

-- Doug Smith

Centered Problem Solvers Stay Focused and Balanced

Have you ever been blocked from solving a problem by emotions? Anger, sadness, grief, despair, impatience...emotions can make things tough on a problem solver.

Staying centered helps. Keeping balance. Drawing on our core strengths of clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion to keep perspective clear and kind. Any problem exists in a field filled with possibilities. Emotions can poison those possibilities if we lose our way.

The way is clear. Stay focused. Stay balanced. Stay centered.

Breathe. Stretch. See. Stay curious. Relax.

Easier said than done? That's why it takes training and practice.

-- Doug Smith

Collaborate Don't Dictate

Do you ever find it easy to identify the solution to someone else's problem?

Without the headaches and heartburn of the problem sitting in your own life, it can seem far more simple and easy to solve.

Seem. That does not mean that it is. And when we take on the problems of another without asking them what they've already done or plan to do, any solution that we do develop is likely to fall short. Ownership of the solution is just as important as creativity.

Sometimes solving someone else's problem for them is a big mistake.

Collaborate rather than dictate. Share ideas. Work together. Understand the problem at it's heart and center and not just on the surface. That takes time. That takes patience. And that takes collaboration.

Centered problem solvers collaborate with creativity, courage, clarity, and compassion. Leave any of that out, and the solution may be incomplete and ineffective.

We've all tried that already, haven't we? Why not start to get it right?



-- Doug Smith

Are you looking for a way to develop more collaborative problem solving on your team? Would it be worth two days of your team's time to work with a process that will solve big problems for years to come? Contact me today to see how a facilitated, creative, centered problem solving session with your team can make a huge impact in your results.

doug@dougsmithtraining.com

Relieve Some of That Stress

What's your single biggest stressor?

Would you like to get rid of it?

For me, the biggest stressor in my life is usually also my biggest problem. The longer it stays a problem, the bigger and more gnarly it gets, which puts more pressure on me to solve it, which causes more stress.

I could do without that stress. But, it's there to help. Stress reminds us that somethings needs to be taken care of. Something needs to be fixed, found, or solved. Why not simply get started?

Solving your toughest problem may not relieve all of your stress but it sure helps focus it in the right direction.

Why not relieve some of that stress today? Get started!

Centered problem solvers realize that problems are not completely separate from themselves. We know not to take them personally, and yet they interfere with our personal selves. Instead of reacting in an immobilized way to the stress that produces, why not move forward. Figure out the root cause of the problem and then set about applying the core leadership strengths you've developed toward solving it. Apply clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion and watch the problem dissolve away.

And when the problems go, there goes the stress.



-- Doug Smith

Are you looking for a way to develop more collaborative problem solving on your team? Would it be worth two days of your team's time to work with a process that will solve big problems for years to come? Contact me today to see how a facilitated, creative, centered problem solving session with your team can make a huge impact in your results.

doug@dougsmithtraining.com

Centered Problem Solvers Ask The Tough Questions

Problems resist easy answers. That's why we need to ask the tough questions.

Why are things the way they are? What is the deeper cause? On the surface, we may think we understand a problem. Digging deeper, asking probing and open ended questions, we can get at the heart of what is really going on.

Are people being rewarded for incorrect behavior? Is someone benefitting from the problem situation? If so, who? Is it too easy to ignore the problem? Is the source of the problem aware that there is even a problem?

For example, those who most resist a fair distribution of work are those who may not be working too hard. Why change?  Executives making juicy bonuses may not even be aware of how hard it is to live paycheck to paycheck.

Creative problem solvers ask the tough questions with curiosity.

Not to judge. Not to punish. But to know. What's really going on?

Centered problem solvers use their creativity to separate people from the problem. They use their compassion to feel the discomfort of those in the throws of the problem. They use their courage to boldly propose better paths. And, they use their clarity to define their goal.

Ask the tough questions. Stay curious about the answers. Solve those pesky problems.

Where could you be more curious today?

-- Doug Smith

The Problem AND The Solution

They can drive you crazy. They can compound the issues. They can slow you down.

But, they can also help you to solve the problem.

People!

People are at the center of every problem - AND every solution.

When we as centered problem solvers work effectively with people - when we collaborate and make the most of our clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion - we solve problems faster and with greater rates of success.

People!

-- Doug Smith

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Front Range Leadership: High Performance Leadership Training

Discover the Absolute Truth

How can you tell the truth from the near-truth?

We are surrounded by near-truths - things we don't dispute because they seem reasonable and don't get in our way. We pay unfair taxes. We tolerate poor service. We spend our time on activities that don't always interest us. And, we do these things (and hundreds of others) without question because, well, it's just easier. We convince ourselves that it's part of our lives. We accept near-truths over the hard work of examining, analyzing, and solving the petty problems of life.

What if we didn't approach near-truths with acceptance? What if we challenged them? What if we assertively held to our vision and values even when it meant saying "no" to someone who did not want (or expect) that as an answer?

That would take courage, wouldn't it? That would take creativity to find a way to do it with respect. That would take compassion to do it without creating harm for others. That would take clarity around what is true.

Discovering the absolute truth dramatically clarifies the possibilities and the solutions to a problem.

It takes the fog out. It opens the more impartial lens and removes the filters. It's invigorating. It's dangerous. It's necessary to focus on what matters most.

What matters most to you could be different that what matters most to me, or to your partner, or to your team. My central question here is: do you know what it is? What matters most to you? Is that your focus? Does that clarify truth for you and help you eliminate automatic acceptance of near-truth?

-- Doug Smith

High Performance Leadership: Solving Problems. Achieving Your Goals.

doug smith training: how to achieve your project goals

Keep Focused

Did that big problem throw you off center? Do you have an unresolved problem that's distracting you from your goal?

Centered problem solving keeps us focused whether or not the problem is solved.

We stay focused when we remember to come back to our center, to breathe, to stay aware of what is going on right now without judging it or pulling it into the past. Centered problem solving keeps us grounded when the emotional wind threatens to blow us away.

Find the balance you need for this situation, right now, within your strengths of courage, creativity, clarity and compassion. Somewhere within that reserve is your ability to solve that problem and remain focused during the difficult work of finding the right solution.

You can do it.

You've done it before.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Quick Thoughts on Centered Problem Solving, Part 2

"Nobody can force you to solve your own problems, but don't you want to?"

"Problems are best solved by drawing on the limitless resources of clarity, courage, creativity and compassion."

"We are not defined by our problems but by what we do about them."

"Character grows in the efforts to solve problems, not in the solutions."

"Telling me not to see something as a problem does not solve it."

"At some level everything is a problem. the question is how will you solve it?"

"It helps to start with a problem solving framework even if you completely change it later."

"Problems exist to bring us together, not pull us apart."

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Be a Centered Problem Solver

Problems are best solved by drawing on the limitless resources of clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion.

Develop these. Apply these. Be a centered problem solver.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Bring our workshop Centered Problem Solving to your location. You'd be surprised at how affordable it is, especially if you are in the Colorado front range area.