A Touch of the Poet

Highly structured? Wildly improvised? 

Harmonic, or distorted? Fast or slow?

Analytics help, but there's nothing quite like a touch of the poet in solving problems. The deep pondering, the pedantic piecing together, the frantic splash of passion.

Whether or not they know it every problem solver has a touch of the poet.

Are you in touch with your touch of the poet?

-- doug smith

 

Get Creative

What if the least likely solution to a problem turned out to be your best choice?

Unlikely does not mean impossible.

Face the challenge and the challenge may back down. Get creative and the best solution may emerge.

-- doug smith

 

Skip the Fear

Fear of creativity keeps many problems from getting solved.

Skip the fear. Expand your creativity.

-- 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

Get Creative

Hidden within every problem is a creative solution.

-- 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

Solve Problems Creatively, Practice Creativity

Do you want to bring more creativity to your problem solving?

I would guess that the answer is "of course!" More creativity leads to better solutions. Oh, yes and it's more fun. Can problem solving be fun? Absolutely, but only if you bring enough creativity into the process to get past the aggravation and move forward to the fun.

Creative problem solving requires creative practice. Find ways to sharpen your creativity.

Find ways off line. Go for a walk. Visit a museum. Draw a picture. Make up a joke (that's harder than it might seem). Create!

This is your coaches prodding, working on you in this moment: go create something!

Practice your creativity the way a great pianist practices their art and craft of playing the piano. You've got you keep your fingers on the keys. Go!

-- Doug Smith

Let Your Creativity Flow

What if all your problem needs is more creativity to find a solution? 
Centered problem solvers let their creativity flow!

-- Doug Smith

Learn From An Imperfect Solution

How does it feel when the solution that you've implemented doesn't quite work?

That frustrates me. All that work. All that thinking. And the solution is imperfect.

Well, guess what? Many solutions are imperfect. Maybe every solution that is available to you is imperfect. We do live in an imperfect world.

We can still benefit from imperfect solutions. We can still grow and learn from the results that we achieve, even when they are flawed or temporary.

Just because a problem doesn't stay solved doesn't mean that the solution wasn't valuable.

Maybe it served a short term end. Maybe it solved a key part of the problem. And maybe, just maybe, it's a way to learn and find our way to a better solution. Broken solutions lead to better solutions. Problems test and expand our creativity.

Centered problem solvers know that the problem solving is never done. Evolving solutions is part of the deal.

-- Doug Smith

Looking for a way to bring your team together to collaborate on some solutions? Are you curious about how to train your organization to solve problems with a centered, creative approach? Contact me here: doug@dougsmithtraining.com

Maybe Try Another Solution

What happens when we use the same solution over and over even when the problems change?

We don't really solve new problems that way do we? And yet so often we pull the same old tools out of our tool box and try the same old solutions.

New problems require new thinking. New problems require new solutions.

It's funny how we sometimes keep trying to same solution on totally new problems.

Funny, but not effective.

Let's do better than that. Let's be more creative. Let's develop new ideas.

How do we do that? Here are a few ways:

• turn your idea upside down - how would it work reversed?
• ask other experts what they think
• ask people who are NOT experts what they think
• look at the problem as if you were ten years old again. What would you do?
• reframe your problem as a goal. How could you achieve that goal.
• rethink your problem as a benefit. What would you do to get more of that problem? Now, how would you reverse that?
• is the root cause what you think it is? what if it were something different? how do you know?

There are many more ways to stay creative.  Go for a walk, look at some art, attend a play (yes, do it!) go to a movie, play an active game -- get things moving within your self and you will likely get things moving within your ideas.

And the ideas are endless. Why settle for less?

-- Doug Smith

Problems Hate Flexibiity

Have you ever noticed how much problems like to stay stuck?

Problems enjoy the routines that keep them in place. There's nothing like a nice deep rut to keep a problem around.

What problems hate is flexibility. The flexibility that comes from creativity, new ideas, new intentions, and new insights.

When we let go of our perceptions we can see new possibilities.

And those possibilities, once focused on a goal, have a marvelous way of leaving problems behind.

Isn't that what you want?

-- 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

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

Front Range Leadership: High Performance Leadership Training

You're An Artist

Do you consider yourself an artist?

I'm often astounded at how many wonderfully creative young people forget to stay creative as they get older. Why do people stop drawing? Why do people stop singing? Why do people stop playing?

When we leave artistic gaps in our lives those voids are filled with content we may not have chosen. When we stop creating art we lose a part of ourselves that is meant to help with our happiness. Trying to solve problems without bringing out our inner artist is likely to doom us to rather pedestrian solutions.

We can do better than that.

We can stay creative. We can play. We can keep drawing, painting, collaging, sculpting, dancing, singing...we can keep our inner artist alive and help it thrive.

The art of problem solving is in staying curious, creative, and open to change.

The art of living is keeping our inner artist alive.

What wonderfully creative act can you play with today?

Go ahead. See how much it helps you in your centered problem solving!

-- Doug Smith

Front Range Leadership: High performance leadership training

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

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