Our biggest problems...

...are what?

The ones we spend the most time trying to solve? The ones that get our feelings moving in awkward directions? The ones we are supposed to solve and can't seem to?

Our biggest problems are the ones we ignore.

We wall them in. We pretend that they can't catch up to us. We let them tick away unnoticed.

They won't go away on their own, will they?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Problem Solving Roots in Kindness

When you are solving a problem, do you consider its effects on other people?

Do you see your solution through the eyes of others? Better still, do you get those other involved in bringing their perspectives to the problem and the solution?

It's easy to think first about ourselves. It's easy to take care only for our own agenda. In our quest for justice it sometimes feels as if a solution that causes someone else to pay for our problems is right. It can feel fair to create hardship on someone who has created or perpetuated our problem. But is that useful? Is that a sustainable solution?

Centered problem solvers are careful about any solution that does not have its roots in kindness.

Without kindness, hurt and pain is only transferred and perpetuated.

Keep compassion in your problem solving.

-- Douglas Brent Smith
 
Fill your empty room with people centered and eager to solve your toughest problems. Contact me today about planning a centered problem solving session:

doug@frontrangeleadership.com

Another Problem Opportunity

What do you do when your problem is with another person?

How do you react when people stand in your way?

It's possible to see this as an opportunity to work on the relationship. It's possible to move the problem forward by deepening our compassion. By slowing down to listen and accept -- without committing to any particular solutions -- we can often arrive at those solutions much faster. We can optimize our results by optimizing our relationships.

Problems provide open opportunities to respectfully express our love.

Who would ever want to miss that?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Missing Shared Values

Have you ever tried to solve problems with a group that is split on its values?

It's not easy.

When we can't agree on what is important it becomes incredibly difficult to stay centered and solve problems. Challenges get bigger when values are in conflict. Ideals turn into contests. Personalities create barriers instead of solutions. Even when ideas do emerge, they are strained and out of alignment.

The first step is to establish alignment. We need a shared mission, goal, and values. Without shared values, how can we ever agree on a solution that meets the needs of all constituents?

Once we agree on our values it becomes easier to solve our problems.

Could that be the place to start?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

You'll Need Your Strengths

When your group is beginning to tackle a big problem, do you know all about your strengths?

It's easy to fix on our weaknesses. Likely, they are part of the problem. When I have seen groups identify their strengths first though it brings an energy to the effort that is remarkable. It helps in solving the problem. It helps in centering the group. It makes it all more fun.

Take inventory of your strengths as a group when you prepare to solve a problem. 

You'll like the impact of the effort.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Solving Problems  |  Achieving Your Goals

Get the help you need

When you are solving a problem do you tend to do it all yourself? Or do you look for the help that you need? Sometimes we hesitate from asking the very people who can give us the most help, simply because they might disagree with our perspective. It's those diverse perspectives that we need in order to develop a lasting, honorable, noble solution.

Expert problem solvers get the help that they need.

You do want to solve that problem, don't you?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Solving Problems  |  Achieving Your Goals

The Size of Your Problems

Have you ever noticed that the bigger your job grows the bigger the problems are that you encounter?

The more people you know the more problems you see?

The more work that has to be done the more opportunities you see for doing it better, faster, smarter, more optimally?

The size of your problems is a measure of your influence.

So if your problems are getting bigger -- good news. So are you.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

A Change In Perspective

Does how you look at it matter?

Absolutely. Anything we can do to see things anew helps us find the optimal view. Anything we can do to turn around our filtering helps us get closer to the truth.

A change in perspective often brings a better solution to your problem.

Ways To Change Perspective:

- Ask someone else and listen with curiosity
- Reverse its current order
- Look at it upside down
- Combine it with something unrelated
- Take much more time than usual to view it
- If it can be offered in writing, read it slowly, aloud
- Try it as if you were ten years old. Four years old. Two.
- Try it as if you were 100 years old
- Drop your preconceived notions of what it means
- Ask "What if..." over and over...

What other ways can you come up with to alter your perspective?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Getting Help

Can you do it all alone?

Are you so confident in your problem solving abilities, and so sure of the causes of your top problem that you expect to solve it on your own.

Maybe you can. And, maybe you can't. Sometimes trying leads to unexpected complications. It can lead to wild swings in momentum, the way an object in motion whips back faster the farther it gets away from you.

We can rely too much on our confidence and lose perspective.

Getting help with a problem can prevent some seriously self-centered mistakes.

If the problem were easy enough to solve on your own, wouldn't it already be solved by now?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

How Many Root Causes?

How many root causes does your problem have?

Much of our time as problem solvers is spent on finding the root cause. Where does our problem originate? What is the source of our trouble?

Could that be a bit of a myth? Is it possible that one root cause has created the situation we now see as a problem?

Probably not.

There are probably many sources of the problem. There are probably many contributing factors. Sure, there may be one origination point -- but by the time the problem has come to your attention there are connections in places you haven't even looked yet.

Problems with only one root cause only exist in our imagination.

Solving that one perceived cause is a great start -- but are you looking for other factors, too?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Focus on One Problem

It's tempting to tackle multiple problems simultaneously. Tempting, but usually less effective.

Centered problem solvers focus on the problem at hand.

The more problems we work on the better we get at it, but only work on one problem at a time.

Working on one problem often uncovers new problems. Write the new problems down and come back to them later.

Your main problem needs your immediate attention, or it wouldn't be your main problem.

Afterall, you'll likely never run out of problems. Why not solve them one at a time?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Holding Judgment at Bay

It's tempting to jump to judgement when wrestling with a troubling problem. When causes seem to emerge, we can want to punish them, hold them down, to take them apart. It could be the wrong course of action.

We need to stay centered. We need to stay curious. We need to probe deeper to the true cause and deal with it unemotionally, as tough as that is.

Centered problem solvers Identify the causes of a problem without judging them.

The goal is to find viable, sustainable solutions to the problem -- not to punish it.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

How Will You Interact?

Solving problems together is powerful. By bringing groups of people together to collaborate on solutions, new ideas are generated and new resources become available. But there are challenges.

What if you have differing agendas?

What if your schedules don't match?

What if you have different values?

When solving problems together start by agreeing on a set of guidelines for how you will interact.

The guidelines will be particular to your project. They may be unique to your group. They may take longer than you expected to reach agreement on. They will be invaluable to your problem solving success.

-- Douglas Brent Smith
 

Finding More Arms

On one hand, the bigger the problem, the tougher it seems. On the other hand, the bigger the problem, the more people are effected and the more potential help you have to recruit. Once people are invested in a problem they are much more likely to care about solving it.

If a problem is too big to wrap your arms around, find more arms to help you.

Sometimes all you need to do is ask.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Listen without Judging

Have you ever proposed an idea or solution to a problem only to have your idea dismissed immediately by someone?

Instant critical response can dowse ideas faster than water on a candle flame. No matter how brilliant your idea may be, it will struggle to survive the search for perfection.

Solving problems together requires the compassion to hear someone else's truth without judging them.

It doesn't mean that you agree.

It doesn't mean that you will be adopting an idea immediately. It simply means keep the judge at bay long enough, and with enough care for the other person, to understand it's perspective.

It's what I call sending your inner judge out for milk and cookies -- the judge will be happy and you'll get to finally hear some ideas completely.

It's more than worth a try -- it's how to build more compassion in your team while generating more ideas.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

The Courage to Tell The Truth

Can a problem be so tough that we deceive ourselves about solving it?

In any problem there is a temptation to soften the edges, smooth the rough spots, to paint a better picture than we see.

Sometimes we take sides and spin the truth in favor of our side, even when that contributes to a conflict or problem. We can do better than that.

Solving problems together requires the courage to tell the truth as you see it.

Not our version of the truth. Not our ideal of the truth. The truth as it exists, weak spots and all.

If we want to clearly analyze a problem, we must be willing to see, and tell the truth.

-- Douglas Brent Smith