Posts

Don’t Solve Problems Dissolve Them

dissolveBigg success is life on your own terms. There are five elements of bigg success – money, time, growth, work and play. Today we want to focus on time with growth factoring in throughout.

It’s important to look at how you spend your time to determine how to save time. One question to look at is how much time you spend putting out fires.

___

___

Pause and reflect

Certain jobs seem to require more reaction than others. The closer you are to the customer, the more you may respond reactively. If your direct charges are on the front line, you may spend more time reacting.

In those cases, you need to allow for more reactive time as you plan out your day. However, bigg goal-getters try to minimize the amount of time they spend reacting.

So if a large portion of your day is spent responding to situations, pause and reflect. Ask yourself what you can do about it.

It’s possible that nothing can be done about it, but in many cases there is more in your control than you might think. It’s about moving from a reactive mode to a proactive mindset.

That’s the higher order of personal leadership. As a bigg goal-getter, you want more in your tool kit than just problem-solving capabilities. You also want to be a problem dissolver. Here are three ways to do that:

Elimination

The best way to dissolve a problem is to never have it in the first place. Look ahead and try to discover potential problems. If you think it’s likely that you will encounter that problem, dissolve it by eliminating it in advance.

Many future problems can be handled this way. For example, leaders who establish clear expectations for their people eliminate many problems before they ever happen.

Preparation

The next best way to dissolve a problem is to have an answer in mind before you need it. You may have thought about these problems upfront, but it’s more effective to prepare for its eventuality than to eliminate it in advance.

A great example of this is contingency plans. You have a path you’re going down and you’ve determined in advance it’s your best path. However, as new evidence becomes available, you realize that you need to adjust. Planning that adjustment in advance helps you respond quickly if the time comes.

Prevention

Some problems just can’t be anticipated in advance. However, bigg goal-getters dissolve them by solving the problem now and preventing it from reoccurring in the future.

We have a tendency to rush to solve a problem, but oftentimes, with just a little more effort, we can keep it from happening again. Take time to figure out why it happened. Reverse engineer your process to see if you can prevent it in the future.

As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The best time to start prevention is right after you’ve found the cure. You’re motivated then!

Use that motivation to your advantage to shift your thinking away from solving problems to dissolving them. It leads to bigg success!

___

Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success.
Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

___

Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time as we discuss an emotion that leaders must control. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

 

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00432-070809.mp3

Related posts

282]

259]

Don't Solve Problems Dissolve Them

dissolveBigg success is life on your own terms. There are five elements of bigg success – money, time, growth, work and play. Today we want to focus on time with growth factoring in throughout.

It’s important to look at how you spend your time to determine how to save time. One question to look at is how much time you spend putting out fires.

___

___

Pause and reflect

Certain jobs seem to require more reaction than others. The closer you are to the customer, the more you may respond reactively. If your direct charges are on the front line, you may spend more time reacting.

In those cases, you need to allow for more reactive time as you plan out your day. However, bigg goal-getters try to minimize the amount of time they spend reacting.

So if a large portion of your day is spent responding to situations, pause and reflect. Ask yourself what you can do about it.

It’s possible that nothing can be done about it, but in many cases there is more in your control than you might think. It’s about moving from a reactive mode to a proactive mindset.

That’s the higher order of personal leadership. As a bigg goal-getter, you want more in your tool kit than just problem-solving capabilities. You also want to be a problem dissolver. Here are three ways to do that:

Elimination

The best way to dissolve a problem is to never have it in the first place. Look ahead and try to discover potential problems. If you think it’s likely that you will encounter that problem, dissolve it by eliminating it in advance.

Many future problems can be handled this way. For example, leaders who establish clear expectations for their people eliminate many problems before they ever happen.

Preparation

The next best way to dissolve a problem is to have an answer in mind before you need it. You may have thought about these problems upfront, but it’s more effective to prepare for its eventuality than to eliminate it in advance.

A great example of this is contingency plans. You have a path you’re going down and you’ve determined in advance it’s your best path. However, as new evidence becomes available, you realize that you need to adjust. Planning that adjustment in advance helps you respond quickly if the time comes.

Prevention

Some problems just can’t be anticipated in advance. However, bigg goal-getters dissolve them by solving the problem now and preventing it from reoccurring in the future.

We have a tendency to rush to solve a problem, but oftentimes, with just a little more effort, we can keep it from happening again. Take time to figure out why it happened. Reverse engineer your process to see if you can prevent it in the future.

As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The best time to start prevention is right after you’ve found the cure. You’re motivated then!

Use that motivation to your advantage to shift your thinking away from solving problems to dissolving them. It leads to bigg success!

___

Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success.
Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

___

Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time as we discuss an emotion that leaders must control. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

 

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00432-070809.mp3

Related posts

282]

259]

A Paint Roller Helps Manage Change

paint roller

Chuck e-mailed his BIGG challenge to us. He’s starting a new job next week. It’s his third job as a manager. In the position he’s leaving, he feels he made too many changes too quickly. It created a problem with his directs. He’s hoping we can offer him some suggestions as he gets ready for his new job.

Read more

Seth Godin on Tribes: Part I

Cover of Seth Godin book Tribes

Seth Godin joined us on The BIGG Success Show today for the first of a three-part series to discuss his fantastic new book, Tribes. Seth is well-known to most of us, but here are some of the details: He is known as the most popular business blogger on the web. He also has written 10 best-selling books, including three of our favorites: Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, and The Dip. Here’s a recap of the first part of our conversation:


Read more

Meet Count Clockula

Count Clockula takes your time away

Count Clockula loves Halloween, but beware… he visits all year!

We’ll tell you more about that in just a minute. You can read all about him below, but you’ll really enjoy listening to this podcast. We had some fun with sound effects on The BIGG Success Show. Click the player to enjoy all of the spooky sounds.

With Halloween approaching, we felt we should warn you about a monster you may not know about. This monster lives off of your most precious resource – time. It’s downright frightening how much of our time can be wasted.

See if you can relate to any of these haunting situations:

Read more