Leadership problem solving
A key skill of any leader is their problem solving ability. Thinking on your feet and removing barriers that prevent you or your team from reaching goals. Leaders in all types of fields have to do this. For me, I think about the challenges and problems that I have faced in my career and what I have done to help solve them.
Prioritize the problems
The first area to focus on is prioritizing the problems. What are the problems we need to solve? How are they preventing us from reaching goals? I often find speaking with others and getting their perspectives. I may feel something is a really big problem, but others may not think so. Let’s work together to figure out the priority!
Experimentation
One area that I advocate for is experimentation!.
- Bring the right people into a room.
- Discuss and agree on the problem statement.
- Share ideas to solve the problem.
- Choose an idea to go with and think what success would look like e.g. how do you know if it’s a success or something to learn from?
- Run though the idea.
- Review — Keep/Bin/Iterate.
Respond instead of react
Sometimes I have jumped into solutionizing mode when faced with a problem. I feel it is important to slow down and take a bit of a step back. Sometimes simply “sleeping on it” works wonders or stating we should take some time to think about it, then come together as a group!
How do you solve problems?
I’d be interested in how you solve problems? What are your techniques and tips for solving problems?
