By Joy W. Goldman Advisor and Founding Partner
Background:
Quite often, we at SixSEED Partners find this theme arising with our clients: “how do I stop seeing everything as a problem to fix?” Occasionally, we’ve thought of developing a 12-step program for recovering fixers: perhaps you’d like to be notified if we ever decide to go live? So what’s the “problem” with perpetual problem solvers? In a complex, rapidly changing world, we need additional thinking tools and different perspectives. Feeling like we are the only ones who can satisfactorily fix problems can be exhausting!
The Challenge:
Simply stated, when every challenge we encounter at work is seen as a problem to fix, we end up in a cycle that drains energy and doesn’t actually eliminate the problem. You can read our colleague David Emerald’s book: 3 Vital Questions to find out more! You’ve heard of the myth of Sisyphus who was doomed to be pushing a boulder to the top of a cliff only to have it roll back down and him having to start all over again? Exactly!
The Strategy:
First, embrace your strength and capacity to problem solve. It’s a great gift and most likely contributed to your advancing in your field. Bravo!
Second: Seek out different perspectives, particularly those that are less visible to you. Especially when you are absolutely certain that you have the one right answer, approach someone with whom you might often disagree and ask them: “What am I missing here?”
Third: Read up on “both/and” thinking: Polarity Thinking. This is a powerful thinking tool that allows you to see and map more complex systems where two seeming opposite tensions interact and the sustainable solution lies in leveraging each tension well and noticing early warning signs when your actions neglect the opposite pole. As an example, for those of you who work for hospital systems that have many distributed hospitals, a common tension is centralizing for efficiency and decentralizing to meet local population needs.
The Outcome:
When you can follow the three steps above, you conserve energy, get results that last, and strengthen the leadership capacity of the entire system. Want to know more? You can reach out to us here: https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/