Problem solving / possibility seeking

When you’re problem solving are you also possibility seeking?

When you're into possibilities can you also see things from the problem perspective? T

hese are 2 sides of a coin, a page, two different moods, sunshine and rain.

🌑Problems to be solved require us to sit among some mess, discomfort and irritation. Some people don’t like it. They’ll dismiss it as negative thinking, poo-poo it and want us to all ‘move on’ to more positive ways of thinking.

🌕Possibilities require us to conjure, create and imagine a new world of delight and happy. Some people don’t like it. They dismiss it as positive thinking, poo-poo it and want us to dig back into details of why and who and what of problems.

Leaders in our rapid problem-solving world need to deliver value, and so also need to be alert to these ways of thinking.

Wherever you prefer to ‘live’ (and some of us aren’t fussed, existing happily in both), know that not everyone sees things this way. You’ll need to invite, allow and let in different styles of thinking.

It can be uncomfortable or awkward if not framed, positioned or guided well. And it’s why leaders need to be able to to facilitate at work and do it well. 

Willing to stay with the problem

We can work with people who are so keen to leap to a solution, they’re not willing to stay with a problem for a little longer.

Why is that? Is it

- pressure to deliver?

- discomfort with the perceived negativity?

- drive to get it done?

- impatience to listen, learn or consider?

It’s so very powerful though, to feel the feels, to really get the empathy and experience of the problem and its consequences. We then give those people experiencing the problem acknowledgement and respect as we sit with the discomfort and inconvenience of the problem.

Try to allow it. For longer. To really explore it, understand it, tease it out or scope it out. Wider and deeper. Not for weeks and months, but at least some hours and days.

Your collective thinking about the solution will most certainly be better. Allowing more time to come up with more ideas and getting more heads, hearts and hands onto it. Don't brush it aside or move on too quickly. A better expression and experience of the problem will elicit a better solution and resolution to the problem.

Your overwhelm is your business

We're faced with daily situations of overwhelm, yet expected to keep up, work it out and carry on.

It happens when we learn something new, start a new role, join a new team or get new responsibilities.

Heck, it happens if we move to a new town, read the menu at a new cafe or have a conversation with someone new! These all have the potential to cause overwhelm.

Nature's metaphors of floods, mudslides, sand storms and sink holes overwhelm cars, buildings and villages in the same way that we get overwhelmed.

But what we're drowning in is information, data, details.

It doesn't feel good.

So do we wait until everyone is a better presenter, leader and communicator, who'll make it all better by delivering information in ways we easily digest? Oh yeah... we’ll be waiting awhile!

This is why our overwhelm - when it happens - is our business. It’s ours to get out of. We don’t have to do it alone, but we do need to take responsibility for it.

Next time you experience overwhelm, notice your response to it. Is your strategy to escape overwhelm or to conquer it? Sensemaking is a deliberate practice to use in the space of overwhelm.

Ask

- what's going on

- what's this about

- what do I need to do.

Are we on the same page yet

Getting on the same page is a collaborative and strategic need we have and yet it can take such an effort for us to get there.

Perhaps some transparency might help. That word 'transparency' ... meaning 'easy to be seen'.

How transparent is your thinking? How well can you see what you're thinking so you can communicate it, share it and transfer it to others?

It can take us so long to get our heads around what we’re thinking, let alone understand what others are thinking! In the meantime, thoughts seem opaque, cloudy and thick - rather than transparent, clear and understandable.

And there's no need to over simplify, just to understand. We can tend to resort to lazy methods like lists and clumps of unsorted information, expecting others to do the connecting of themes, the joining of dots and the revealing of patterns.

But oh, that keeps us on different pages.

We can do better.

Today’s cray-cray world of information, ideas, happenings and data needs us to be able to:

🎫 get to grips with information quickly,

🎫 get ourselves (as a group) on the same page, and then

🎫 decide ... so we can get on with it. This is sensemaking.

Do you know how you think

Not the 'glass half empty/glass half full' kind of thinking, but how flexible, adaptable and malleable our thinking might be.

Much of what we do is so ruled by habit, routine and bias, that to be able to have 'meta cognition' - thinking about how we think - can be out of reach. We need to learn, to be taught it.

So can we 'get above' our thinking so we know what it is.

That could be mighty helpful:

- in a conflict or argument

- in the depths of a dull meeting

- in a brand new job role

- in a complex decision making process.

Our thinking patterns can open us up to adopt or try new ways, and our thinking can also close us down, snapped shut, blocked and rigid. As much as we might hope we're flexible, adaptable and malleable, are we really?

Could we think some more about how we think?

Let's aim to spend more time 'up there' where we are aware of what we are thinking. Hmmmmm 🤔