by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n
Will the solution solve anything? Will the solution make the situation worse?<\/strong><\/p>\n “Let’s fix that!”\u2014the cry of the optimistic solution-er.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Will the solution improve our situation or only make it worse?<\/p>\n A long-time colleague once described a situation he faced decades ago. Things at home were a mess. His wife and kids were a mess. His house was a physical mess. When he came home from work he wanted to immediately return to “the office” because the office wasn’t such a mess. Life was a mess.<\/p>\n A solution: become a manager at work. Be paid more money. Hire a maid to remove the mess at home.<\/p>\n Let’s think this through. His home was a mess because he and his spouse couldn’t manage it. Becoming a manager at work would be a disaster because, as he just admitted, he was a lousy manager. If he became a manager at work, the office would be a mess, the home would still be a mess, there would be no non-messy place to hide.<\/p>\n The solution would make the situation worse.<\/p>\n Think. Thinking it through is often less costly than running an experiment (like my colleague becoming a manager at work). What about the situation makes me think I should bring a solution? Ask again and again and ask deeper each time.<\/p>\n For my colleague: the home is a mess.<\/p>\n Who is in charge at home? Me. I am the home mess maker.<\/p>\n Where is the solution? At home, with me.<\/p>\n But I want to make more money and hire someone to fix me at home.<\/p>\n Am I qualified to make more money? No, when it comes to a group of people, I am a mess maker.<\/p>\n What am I qualified to do? Fix me. Well, maybe I am. Maybe I need a little help from someone else to fix me.<\/p>\n Where can I find someone to help fix me?<\/p>\n Aha! We finally reach the question we should ask. Seek help to fix me. Then work back through the situation. Perhaps, just perhaps, one day my home won’t be a mess, and I can take a new job at work and earn more money if that is still what I wish.<\/p>\n Other examples:<\/p>\n No one comes to our volunteer organization any more. There are all sorts of solutions, but maybe the primary issue is that no one wants to be in a room with me. What can I do to fix me so that others want to be with me?<\/p>\n No one gives to our charity any more. There are all sorts of solutions, but maybe the primary issue is that no one sees a good reason to put their resources in my hands. What can I do to fix me so that others want to share with me?<\/p>\n Perhaps the solution to the situation almost always begins with solving myself. Perhaps that is why I try all the wrong things first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Dwayne Phillips Will the solution solve anything? Will the solution make the situation worse? “Let’s fix that!”\u2014the cry of the optimistic solution-er. Will the solution improve our situation or only make it worse? A long-time colleague once described a situation he faced decades ago. Things at home were a mess. His wife and kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,247,337],"tags":[174,248,338],"class_list":["post-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-problems","category-questions","category-solutions","tag-problems","tag-questions","tag-solutions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2765,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions\/2765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}