Problem maker or process improver

You can keep creating and fixing messy problems … or … focus on making better progress through improving processes. 

It’s costly when there’s no process, a process wasn’t followed or human error could have been easily picked up. 

The pursuit of improvement is a wise investment. 

But… *gulp* it can take a shift in your attitude and culture to be willing to learn and to receive feedback. 

No customer or client wants their experience to be flawed, delayed or full of problems. 

But if your business is a problem maker then you might be waiting for customers to alert you to problems. 

Not good PR. 

Better to be a process improver - making systems and processes work better. Then there’s less chance of things going wrong anyway. 😊

Try ‘Kaizen’, meaning ‘improvement’ in Japanese. It’s a truly brilliant philosophy and way of working for better progress … and customer experience. 

Read more in this Fast Company article by Molly Shea Shine. 

“Put simply, it’s the practice of thinking about what you’re doing, looking for ways to improve it, making those changes, then continuing to act upon them.”

Improvement. It’s is a much more worthy pursuit than having to make apologies for messing up. 

Fed up with the push for productivity

The drive to ‘do more’ or to ‘make the most of our time’ was wearing a bit thin pre-pandemic. 

We’d reached a kind of ‘productivity fatigue’. 

James Clear, quoted in a Fast Company article by Aytekin Tank says that “Productivity is getting important things done consistently. And no matter what you are working on, there are only a few things that are truly important.”

We are more interested in - and it turns out, motivated by - progress... and so making ‘meaningful progress’ is what matters. 

When we do that, we’re more likely to be ‘productively creative’ in the long run. 

Sounds like the ideal result. 

Worry less about whether you’re being super productive. 

Focus more on whether you’re making progress on the things that are meaningful to you. 

How creative could you be

Too many boring and dull online meetings, right?

How do we make things more interesting? And are we waiting for someone else to do the ‘be more creative’ thing?

There’s a personal scale of creativity - things that I think are creative and engaging, you may not. And vice versa. 

With that in mind, we can design and lead a number of creative exercises or activities that work in online meetings. 

Things like:
- Starter or kick off activities 
- Short icebreakers
- Introduction questions
- Quick energizers 
- Focus exercises to bring us back on topic 
- Get to know you activities 
- Idea generation exercises 
- Wrap up and summary tasks.  

None of them have to be long and drawn out. Some people wrongly think we don’t have time to bring more creativity to online meetings.

Even short bursts of a different activity can lift a mood, boost interest and attention or change the level of engagement. 

Times are tough anyway. We don’t need to make the mood worse with dull and drawn out online meetings!

It’s worth a little more effort to make the hours we spend online more interesting and more effective. 

We can all make a creative contribution here, whether leading the activity ... or participating in it. 

Naming the struggle

While guiding a group with mentoring advice recently, the most common statement in their questions and sentences was, ‘I’m struggling with…'

Learning, growing, changing and adapting is indeed a struggle. 

And it’s being magnified further in these times! 

Struggling - in less violent terms - is about doing one’s best, but I wonder, what is it that we are doing in struggling?

Are we :
- Getting used to ...
- Annoyed or frustrated with ...
- Trying to understand ...
- Debating or weighing up...
- Confused about ...
- Taking longer than we expected?

All of these situations could indeed be a struggle. And I wonder if that feeing of ‘I’m struggling with…’ is worth redefining or renaming, rather than bundling it all up as struggling. 

Acknowledge it is a struggle. Yes. 

And then explore what else it is: whether it’s a frustration, an obstacle, a question, or just another a step along a path of change. 

Perhaps it’s more challenging than we’d liked, hoped or expected. 

From anxiety to action

In these times of great change and uncertainty, anxiety can show up. 

What’s happening? 
How will things change again? 
What will happen next? 

There are many questions and confusion can be common. 

To help allay fears, reduce anxiety and take a step towards greater certainty, Sensemaking can help. 

Healthcare workers for example, are making great use of Sensemaking. 

Working in changing and uncertain situations means they need to ‘make sense’ of what’s occurring. It helps them professionally and personally and is part of the delivery of healthcare services. 

To make sense, we can use stories, data, tools and templates. 

You can ask: 
- What’s going on? 
- What’s the story?
- What do we need to do? 

It’s a deliberate step that can help any of us shift from the swirls of anxiety ... to the steps of powerful action.