Before you make a big decision, make sure you pause and spend some time considering these questions.
As you get ready to make an important decision and take action, there are some critical questions you need to ask yourself before you move forward. Take the time to think this stuff through. As you get ready to move forward, ask yourself, how big is this decision? Can I break this big decision into smaller ones to reduce the risk that I face? How irrevocable is this decision? Can you roll it back if you’re wrong or do you have to get it right on the first shot? You should know the difference.
What’s the cost of being wrong, and what’s the value of being right? And is that an appropriate trade-off that you’re making? How long do you have to make the decision? Many times, we impose a deadline on ourselves which isn’t real. What’s the real deadline for making this call and moving forward? What’s the cost of waiting, and what’s the value of acting now? For example, I had a decision I had to make, and if we had acted sooner, we would have saved a lot more money. And if we waited, those savings were going to be gone. Understanding that trade-off of time is critical.
What are my personal biases that might be affecting this decision? Perhaps you made a decision in the past and it didn’t go well, and this decision feels a lot like that last decision that didn’t go so well. You should know that you have a bias that might be affecting your decision to move forward. How do I mitigate the biases that I might have to make clearer decisions? Can you bring somebody in as a sounding board to help push you on those biases? Who do I need to involve in the decision, and how do I need to involve them? Spend the time populating that RACI matrix, and understand who’s consulted and who’s informed.
Lastly, who needs to know I made a decision, and how should I inform them? For some decisions, it’s fine to send out an email. For other decisions, that would be highly inappropriate. You need to think through the communication plan for how you’re going to get the message out there.
So before you move forward and take that final action, make sure you pause, spend some time considering these questions, and document your answers so you can be sure to make the best decision possible.
Want to learn more about developing your decision-making strategies? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to make better decisions. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20221109-Cornfield-Decision.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-11-09 07:00:162022-11-09 04:13:12Questions to Ask Yourself Before Making a Big Decision
All decision-making involves risk. Use these three strategies to reduce risk when making decisions.
You face risk in all decision-making. A goal of yours should be to reduce that risk as much as is reasonable. There are three primary methods for reducing risk.
First, involve more people in the decision-making process. They’re going to give you additional information and offer perspectives you may not have thought of. Additionally, by involving them early, you’re reducing execution risk on the back end. You’re getting people to buy into the decision now so when it comes time to execute, they’re onboard.
The second way to reduce risk is take more time. Today, the future may be completely uncertain. A month from now, maybe you’ve resolved some of those sources of ambiguity. A year from now, you have even better information as to the environment you’re going to make your decision in.
The third way to reduce decision-making risk is break big decisions into smaller decisions. If you’re trying to decide whether to relaunch the entire company website, perhaps you break that decision down and you make a smaller decision today of launching a pilot website, gather some additional information, and then make the bigger decision down the road.
There’s a balance between gathering information and making a decision in a timely manner because gathering information takes time and money. And yes, you’re reducing uncertainty by doing so, but remember, there are always new sources of uncertainty entering the equation. So find that balance between having enough information to make your decision.
As you look at ultimately reducing decision-making risk, remember to involve more people, take more time in making the decision, and break those bigger decisions into smaller ones.
Want to learn more about developing your decision-making strategies? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to make better decisions. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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When most people think of balance at work, they think of work/life balance. Learn about a new type of balance—work/work balance.
Leading a balanced life is a critical aspect of performing well as a leader. And there are two types of balance. We always think about work-life balance in terms of how much time we spend away from the office. But there’s another kind of balance that I encourage you to think about. I call it work/work balance. We need a balance of work that we love to do to balance out the work that we don’t enjoy doing. Because if those get out of balance, we’re gonna be miserable at work. And you probably spend more hours at the office than you do away from it with your friends and your family.
To achieve this work/work balance, you need to set boundaries. Because without boundaries, people are going to violate them all the time. You’re going to be upset, they’re going to be upset, and nobody’s going to know why. So we need to draw those lines. One of my maxims to remind me to set those boundaries is, “I’m going home, you’re doing my job.” This maxim reminds me of a situation where I had a boss who was a bit of a micromanager.
My boss came in one day, very well intended, and got in front of my desk. He said, “Hey Mike, I want you to start thinking about this and this and this and working on that.” I tried to stop him to say, “I have this,” but he kept going. He said, “And think about this and to do that and think about this project.” He kept going on and on.
I kept trying to interrupt, but I was unsuccessful in doing so. The reason I wanted to interrupt was because I had a whiteboard on my wall behind him, and on that whiteboard was every project he was ticking off. Along with the status of it. As he was talking, I was ticking down that list.
I wanted to tell him that I had it covered. But it became clear that I wasn’t going to get my point across so I picked up my briefcase, I put my laptop in it while he was still talking, and put my bag on my shoulder. He had a moment where he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going home, you’re doing my job.”
He looked at me a bit puzzled. I said, “Turn around and look at the whiteboard.” He turned around and he looked at the whiteboard. He said, “Okay, I get it.” And I said, “Look, I love working for you. I love getting to do these projects, but if you’re gonna come in here and micromanage me, I’m not going to be satisfied with that work environment, so let me do the work. Now this is on me—I haven’t updated you well on the projects and I’ll try to do a better job of that going forward.”
I had a very good relationship with this boss so it wasn’t really a career limiting move, but I drew a very firm boundary. I said for me to be satisfied with the work that I do, I need to have a certain amount of control and self-direction over that.
So as you think about your work, I’d like you to think about work that you love to do. What separates it? What is it that’s so special about it that you are really excited to go do it? Then think about work you don’t enjoy doing. How do you create a boundary between them? How do you draw a balance to make sure that you’re still getting enough of the work you love to do to balance out the stuff that you’re less satisfied with?
Think about a situation where you were able to clarify that boundary for somebody and get more of the work you enjoy doing. That story about drawing that boundary is good fodder for your maxim on creating work/work balance. If you’re able to then adhere to that maxim and communicate it to others, you’ll be much more satisfied with the work that you do.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221012-Balanced-Rocks.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-10-19 07:30:142022-10-19 07:25:31Achieving Balance at Work
Nurturing employees to be the voice of the brand sustains an ecosystem for innovation, bridging marketing efforts and connecting them with the stakeholders.
Today’s post is by Dhanshi Kittusamy Murthi, Regional Head of US Marketing at Vuram, a global hyperautomation services company.
Organizations across industries are exploring ways to shape a sustainable work culture that enables their people to perform at their highest levels. One way to do this is by presenting people with opportunities to be recognized for their expertise: this not only nurtures outstanding results by building confidence among employees but also boosts the visibility of the brand.
Enabling employees to be the voice of the brand sustains an ecosystem for innovation and productivity, and content is the vital piece of the puzzle to achieving this. It boosts brand awareness and acts as a means through which an organization’s employees can showcase themselves.
Generating Content that Represents the Brand:
According to a 2021 Statista survey involving business-to-business (B2B) content marketing professionals, 91% of the organizations responded that creating brand awareness was one of the goals of their content marketing activities. While chalking out the marketing plan or budget for branding campaigns, marketers should factor in an essential segment that can champion the voice of the brand in the truest sense: its own people.
Every growing, successful organization is driven by passionate people and a work culture that appreciates their efforts. When the employees love what they do, they take pride in what they learn and advocate the best practices. Encouraging them to share their expertise builds a repository of trustable knowledge and content that truly represents the brand.
Building Trust-Based Stakeholder Relations:
Showcasing people as the face of the brand allows businesses to communicate authentically while having a host of benefits. Beyond making an impact in the industry, the ripple effect drives innovation and progress in society by organizations committed to making a difference. In the B2B context, the content created by people who directly work with prospects fosters a bond between the company and its clients, when the spokesperson directly interacts with customers, potential or active. This not only boosts the brand image but also uplifts the morale of the employees and builds trust-based stakeholder relations.
For instance, let’s take an organization specializing in emerging technologies; they constantly innovate and experiment to deliver cutting-edge solutions to solve the problems the customers are facing. The technology experts within the organization can talk about the technologies they are passionate about through short knowledge-sharing videos covering technologies tied to their core work or those they are passionate about. Video being a powerful form of content as it is, reaches business audiences multifold. According to a Forbes Insight report, 75% of the surveyed C-suite executives stated they “watch work-related videos on business-related websites at least weekly”. Imagine speaking to these decision makers about various technologies, in this example, how the company can help solve the crucial challenges they are facing.
The Power of Authentic Content:
People who are camera-shy or prefer writing over the visual form can write about how their core expertise can help their target audience. Coming from a valid source, such knowledge-sharing assumes more value among the audience; it helps resonate with the brand image—of innovating and experimenting—and what the company stands for. Down the line, such authentic content inspires prospects to follow the company updates and be interested in its offerings and, not to mention, form a personal brand for the spokespeople. At a company level, it attracts fresh graduates on the lookout for a learning environment and inspires new employees to conquer the steep knowledge curve and explore ways to innovate as they pursue their careers.
Representing the Brand in Their Own Way:
As organizations embrace the new normal and transition into hybrid working, content generated by experts expands into meaningful branding and visibility opportunities for employees and the organization. Within the organization, the activity instills a learning culture that nurtures future spokespeople. Hence giving people the freedom with responsibility to represent the brand and share ideas and knowledge that matter strengthens the social and professional well-being of employees in an organization.
Creating opportunities that give people exposure and recognition is vital to increase job satisfaction and happiness at work. With remote working, similar initiatives help employees to showcase their potential, initiate internal conversations, and strengthen their visibility among their colleagues. These initiatives will deepen the foundations of open communication and transparency in the workplace, motivating people to share new ideas and focus on ways to innovate.
At a time when trust and transparency are paramount for businesses, shaping a healthy brand image driven by sincere communication from its people matters a lot. Strengthening the brand message is crucial for resilience and building confidence for all stakeholders involved in the ecosystem.
About the Spokesperson
Dhanshi Kittusamy Murthi is the Regional Head of US Marketing at Vuram, a global hyperautomation services company. Her 8-year career experience spans teaching, content writing, and marketing. In her current role at Vuram, she is responsible for strategizing and executing marketing campaigns for the US region.
About Vuram
Vuram is a global hyperautomation services company specializing in low-code enterprise automation. Since its inception in 2011, Vuram has maintained 100% customer success and 100% customer references. Powered by passionate people, Vuram has successfully driven digital transformation for several happy enterprise customers across the globe.
Vuram has received several prominent recognitions, including being featured among the Inc 5000 fastest-growing private companies in the United States, HFS hot vendor (2020), Rising Star- Product Challenger in Australia by ISG, Fast Company – Best Workplaces for Innovators 2022, and recognized as a finalist in the Excellence in Change Communication category in the Gartner Communications Awards 2022. Vuram has consistently ranked in India’s Best Places to Work, certified by Great Place to Work® institute.
Vuram’s hyperautomation technology stack encompasses business process management (BPM), robotic process automation (RPA), optical character recognition (OCR), document processing AI, machine learning (ML), and analytics.
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221010-Two-Employees.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-10-10 08:00:052022-10-10 00:38:32Reimagining B2B Brand Awareness Through Real Faces: How it Benefits Organizations
Establishing an ethical code helps you behave in a manner that is consistent with the type of leader you want to be.
As a leader, it’s important to set guidelines. We’ve all made bad decisions at some point. Wouldn’t it be great to have something that can prevent us from making a bad decision before it actually happens? So a leadership maxim designed to say, “Here are my rules of the road. Here are the things that are non-negotiable for me and decisions I won’t make outside of this set of boundaries.”
I’ve had two maxims over the years. The first, “It’s hard to shave if you can’t look yourself in the mirror.” Now, with this goatee, I have to look in the mirror every single day, but the way this maxim reminds me to make good decisions is, I need to be okay with the guy that’s looking back at me in the mirror every single morning. There have been times where I had two choices, and I could easily logic my way into making a wrong one. This maxim has made me pause for a second and say, “How are you going to feel about this tomorrow?” And the answer was not so great, so I made the more difficult choice.
Now, in terms of emotional resonance, that maxim resonated for me for a while, but ultimately, I changed my maxim to, “What would Nana say?” Nana was my grandmother, and I’m the firstborn grandson in an Italian family, so Nana and I had a very special relationship. I sit there and I think about, well, what would my Nana say if she saw me doing what I’m doing right now? She would either be really proud of me and happy with it or she’d start saying things to me that I might not be so comfortable with.
I’ve applied this maxim in a lot of situations. I was in a situation shortly after Nana passed away, three days later, and I was going to give this presentation on leadership maxims at my largest, most important client. As I walked into the hotel that night, I said, “Oh my gosh, I can’t put that slide up because it has a picture of Nana on it. I’ll be in front of 300 people, and I might start crying.” I stopped and I said, “Well, what would Nana say?” Nana would say, “Michael, put the slide up. Show people what vulnerability looks like. Show them what emotional resonance can really do.” I followed the guidance, and it was an uncomfortable moment, but afterwards, something incredible happened. People came up to me and they said, “I want to thank you for sharing your personal story and really showing me what it means to make yourself vulnerable.” So that maxim has served me very well and helped me make difficult decisions.
As you think about your guidelines as a leader, what are your non-negotiables? What are the things that have prevented you from making bad decisions? It’s important that you write this maxim during a time of calm because when the pressure is on, that’s when the maxim is really important. When that pressure is on, we can make bad decisions as leaders. This maxim will serve as that guardrail that stops you when you’re about to cross over that line. It will help you make a decision that’s consistent with the type of leader that you want to be.
Think about those situations where perhaps you made a bad decision, or you made a great decision, and what led you to do that. What are the types of things that will prevent you from making bad decisions in the future and will help you behave in a manner that’s consistent with the leader that you want your team to see you as? As you think about that situation and break it down to a very pithy, simple rule that will trigger that memory, that’s going to be your leadership maxim for setting your own personal guidelines.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221005-Ethics-Sign.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-10-05 06:30:592022-10-05 04:55:24Establishing Your Ethical Code
Defining your organization’s vision and mission helps you focus on work that is consistent with your purpose.
A vision and mission define your purpose and your destination. While the mission and vision are usually written for top-level organizations, these tools can be used at a departmental level and even at a personal level. They help you focus on work that is consistent with your purpose and that takes you closer to achieving your goals.
The mission is why your organization exists. It specifies the business you’re in, who you serve, and your impact on the world around you. It’s the road you’re on. I run a leadership training firm. My firm’s mission is to advance the art of business leadership through hands-on training and coaching led by dynamic business people. It’s clear what business we’re in: business leadership training. It’s clear who we work with: people in large and small organizations who are their leaders. And the impact on the world is helping people improve their skills in this arena.
The vision is a midterm objective of what you’ll achieve three to five years out. It’s a waypoint along the road you’re on. My firm’s vision, right now, is to be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who teach managers around the world how to be great leaders. This lays out my expectations for the type of work we’re going to do and when I’ll consider us to be successful. This global element is something that’s new in the past few years, and it’s really getting us to focus on other countries.
The mission and vision are linked. They can be created for any organization. They’ll set direction and help determine the work you will or won’t do. For my firm, our vision and mission do exactly that. We routinely say no to consulting work. It’s not part of our mission and it doesn’t help us achieve our vision. When you lay out your mission and vision for your organization, it’s going to set that direction that will enable you to know which types of work matter and which types of work are off your path.
Want to learn more about strategic focus for managers? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Market and organizational changes can require you to shift your strategic focus. Being explicit about the details of the shift will help you and your team adjust to these changes.
Market and organizational changes can require you to shift your focus. This can mean temporarily pausing some work to accelerate or add new projects. Remember that your team’s time and energy is a fixed asset. Shifting focus doesn’t mean adding new things to focus on. Unless you add resources, you have to make trade-offs on where people spend their time. This enables you to complete more projects faster because your team is focused on them. During a shift in focus, draft a plan and communicate it. This plan should include:
What’s causing us to shift focus?
What’s our desired outcome once we get through the change?
What’s our strategy for navigating the change?
What old work will we stop doing to free up resources?
What new work will we be focusing on?
When I worked at a financial services firm, we had a major event that caused us to shift focus. The regulators came in and took a look at our processes. They didn’t like what they saw. They said we needed to rectify a whole list of issues. We put together and communicated a plan. What was causing us to shift focus? The regulators identified these 10 issues. What’s our desired outcome once we get through it? Well, those issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the regulators. What’s our strategy for navigating the change? Well, we’re going to stop doing some of our technology projects and move all our resources to the regulatory issues. What old work were we going to stop? Well, here are the five projects that are now on hold. What new work will we be focusing on? Here are the 10 ideas, and here’s how we’re going to allocate resources against them.
By being explicit about the shift and moving the resources to it, we got through those regulatory issues pretty quickly. When we finished, we picked up the technology projects and moved forward. If you shift focus without communicating the new end state and explicitly saying what work is in or out of focus, you risk people taking on new work but not feeling like they can stop doing the old work to take on the new. You risk burning out the team. When you have one these major shifts, be deliberate about putting a plan in place and communicating it to the organization.
Want to learn more about strategic focus for managers? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Resist the urge to pursue every new opportunity. Invest your resources in the ones that align with your overall strategy.
New ideas and opportunities come along all the time. Resist the urge to jump on the next new thing. Rely on your prioritization process to assess all new ideas. Remember, if you add something new to your list, you either need to add resources to work on it or you have to stop working on something else, or finish something that’s a higher priority before you start working on the new task. Failure to do this leads to the inevitable burnout of your team.
In high growth organizations, periods of hyper growth can be really dangerous. During that time, everything’s interesting and exciting. The team has the energy to pursue a lot of ideas. But eventually, they run out of steam. Initiatives fail. Morale drops and performance suffers. Maintain a rigorous approach to drawing the line, and only pursue initiatives when you have the resources available to pursue them properly.
What I mean by drawing the line is, think of your initiative list. Start at the top of the list with your highest priority initiatives and then list every single idea and project you’re working on. Then, once you have that complete list, figure out what resources you have available to do the work. That may be people, time, or money.
Start at the top of your list and work your way down that list, figuring out how many resources that project is going to consume. When you run out of resources, draw a line on your prioritization list. Don’t work on anything below that line until you have additional resources or you finish a project above the line.
Enforce the discipline of assessing all new initiatives through your strategic filters. The filters let you know how closely aligned an idea is with your overall strategy. When you find something that’s off-strategy, there’s a rationale for saying no to it and staying focused on the most important ideas.
Want to learn more about strategic focus for managers? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Understanding the concept of opportunity cost will help you prioritize your team’s most important tasks. Learn to say no to low-value work.
Do you know what your team’s time is worth? Lack of focus consumes time. That’s the one resource you can never get back. When you look at activities in terms of their time cost, it becomes easier to say no to distractions.
Don’t just ask, “What task am I going to do next?” Instead, ask, “What task am I not going to do so I can work on the new request?” When requests come in to your team, assess what other work isn’t going to get done by the team if you take on the new request. If you can explain the tradeoff to the person who’s asking you to do the work, they’re probably going to be more open to you saying no and deprioritizing that new task if it’s not as important as other work you should be working on.
I work with one attorney at a large corporation who has a team of lawyers. People come to his team all the time and ask for legal work to be done even if his team shouldn’t be doing that work. He always says yes even though it’s not necessarily something an attorney has to look at. He was complaining one day about how much work was on his team’s plate. I asked him, “Hey, would you pay an outside attorney 400 dollars an hour to work on that new project that just came in?” His eyes got big and he said, “Absolutely not.” That’s when the lightbulb went off for him. He realized by taking on that project, it meant his team wasn’t working on higher priority work. He was sending that high-priority work to outside counsel and paying 400 dollars an hour. The thing is, taking on the low-value work was essentially costing him that 400 dollars. That’s when he started saying no to those distractions so his team could focus on the most important work.
When you understand these tradeoffs in terms of time cost, it’s easier to say no to low-priority or low-value work. This is going to make the work your team does the highest priority work that’s on their plate.
Want to learn more about strategic focus for managers? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Transform your business by completely rethinking how it works. Analyzing your business model, revenue, and costs can lead you to innovative solutions.
When you go to generate new ideas to run things better, you need to think critically about the way your business runs. I like to look at three things: a business model blowup, a revenue blowup, and a cost blowup.
On the business model blowup, fundamentally rethink how you go to market. And rethink what your market actually is. You’re going to challenge the entire business model for the way you deliver products and services. On the revenue blowup side, how do you dramatically expand the products, your pricing, the geography, and the reach of your business? And on the cost blowup, how do you fundamentally eliminate drag from the business to become more efficient?
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When a stakeholder asks you to solve a problem, make sure you understand what’s driving their request. Asking follow-up questions can help you come up with better solutions.
So many times when we’re asked to look into an issue, we just rush off and start solving it without really thinking through what’s causing the person to ask the question in the first place. Probe to understand why you’re being asked to look at something. Once you have a good understanding of why, you’re more toward a cause, but don’t stop there. Once you have that understanding, ask why again. Really get that deep understanding of what’s causing concern on your stakeholder’s part.
By understanding the real question they have, you can avoid solving symptoms and instead, come up with a recommendation that is going to resonate for them and be something that they’re excited about. The real question opens up new answers, new ideas, and new opportunities.
Let me offer an example. An executive that I worked with, named Sue, was asked by her senior stakeholder, Kim, to look at employee turnover data. Sue knew this data inside and out. It was very easy for her to go into the information, pull out the data, and generate a report about turnover. And she could have done that, but she didn’t. She stopped and asked Kim why she wanted to understand this issue, and it was really an issue of evaluating unit performance.
Well, once Sue understood this, other metrics made more sense than just the base turnover data. She stopped though and asked Kim again why was she looking at unit performance in particular. Turns out what Kim really wanted to understand was whether they were having issues with leadership or with processes. They were having a lot of churn and turnover of their associates. It was now clear to Sue that she had to look at metrics and processes. By doing so, she was able to generate ideas on how to fix some of the issues with leadership, as well as some of the processes that should change. She generated a better solution.
What I’d encourage you to do is take a look at a problem you’ve been asked to solve. Go back to that stakeholder and understand what’s really driving that request. Why do they care about this? When you get a better understanding of that, you’ll find the solutions you come up with are going to be bigger, better, and more exciting.
Want to learn more about critical thinking? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning about critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Writing a problem statement helps you define your goals, boundaries, constraints, and assumptions when faced with a challenging project.
One of my favorite critical thinking and problem solving tools is a good problem statement. You should never just take a problem and rush off in a general direction, thinking you’re going to come up with a solution that will satisfy the needs of your requester. If you don’t know the destination, you’re going to get lost. It’ll take you a long time to get there. The corollary here is with your problem solving and critical thinking. You need to know what that destination is. What is success for your problem solving?
Your problem statement defines that endpoint. Without a problem statement, you’re going to spend a lot of wasted hours, wasted work, and have excessive revisions because your recommendation won’t make sense. Nobody will know what you’re trying to solve for. When you put together a good problem statement, it becomes your charter for your critical thinking efforts. It’s going to spell out your goals. It will lay out boundaries on the problem solving space. It will define success criteria. Your problem statement should spell out the constraints you’re going to face. It should articulate your assumptions, who the stakeholders are, and any timelines that you’re going to face.
I have one client organization that didn’t spend the time laying out their problem statement. They ended up with major issues for their charter for a huge technology project. Because the team was trying to solve all different problems, they didn’t have clarity on what the ultimate goal was, what the metrics were, who the stakeholders needed to be, and what the boundaries were for the space they were trying to solve in. This led the team to write a lot of code, have multiple revisions, and multiple attempted roll-outs. They couldn’t solve the problem because they hadn’t defined what the problem was in the first place.
Take a look at a problem you’re trying to solve. Is it clear what the problem statement is? Do you know what the goals are? Do you know what the boundaries, constraints, and assumptions are? Do you know who the stakeholders are? The time you spend with this type of critical thought is going to help you be more effective in solving the problems that you face.
Want to learn more about critical thinking? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning about critical thinking. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
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