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You Can’t Solve Spherical Problems with Flat Thinking
You can’t solve spherical problems with flat thinking…and yet, so much of leadership, decision-making, and strategy still operates as if reality will eventually cooperate if we just simplify it enough. Straight lines. Clean answers. Either/or choices. The problem is that many of the situations we’re navigating now…in organizations, in systems, in our own lives…aren’t flat…
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How is Building a business Similar to Doing the Crosswords?
I picked up this crossword puzzle book a while back – one that promised: “enrich your word power” . Today, without any grand plan, I opened it. My mind felt crowded, and I needed something different… something structured but playful, quiet but energizing. So I flipped the book open, landed on Puzzle #77, and decided…
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What Every Business Gets Wrong when Trying to Solve Problems
We say we want solutions — but what most businesses really want is relief. That’s the same impulse that sends patients rushing to the doctor saying, “Just give me something for the pain.” But what we often forget is this: pain isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom. When businesses call for help, they often expect…
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What’s in your toolbox?
Every five years or so, I go through my books and decide what I’ll donate and what I will hang on to. This is difficult for me because I don’t like to part with books, but it is now a question of practicality – I don’t have the shelf space to keep all the books.…
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Redefine your problem as a missing or faulty system
Yesterday I wrote about seeing versus actually solving problems. Being aware of or seeing problems is only half the battle. If you’ve been struggling with a recurring issue in your business, and no matter what you do, it’s still there, resurfacing and rearing its ugly head then what I am about to share, will help…
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Seeing versus solving problems
We all see problems. Or so we think. What we really see are problem’s symptoms, not the cause of a particular problem – that is, why it occurred in the first place. I saw this illustration below recently showing problem awareness in companies. I think it might be more accurate if the word symptoms was…
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Why hire a consultant if you already know what to do?
My doctor use to say that every Trini is a doctor. He would laugh at the number of diagnoses I would have arrived at before finally coming to see him to determine what was going on with me. He knew that in addition to asking family and friends, that I had consulted Dr. Google and…
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Do you have a definite method of working?
Many service providers are not rewarded because they don’t have a method for the application of their expertise. They haven’t developed their own proprietary method for working. DAVID C. BAKER Imagine for a minute, that someone shows interest in your work. David C. Baker suggests that what you need to be talking about is whether…
Get Clarity before the Fix
