Be the CEO of your own job - Bring Me Solutions, Not Problems

One of the most practical pieces of early career advice - “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” The message is very clear. I hired you because you’re smart. As your manager I’m happy to help you any time you need. But I have my own shit to deal with – believe me. You think you have problems? Imagine having 10 people reporting to you all bringing you problems as well as our client and my senior partners. I don’t have the time or inclination to figure out your problems for you.

When you bring the solution / problem to others it should be info like -

• Problem - you do need to state what the problem is up front (but make it clear that you have ideas on how to solve it) before asking people to approve something. Try to be specific on the problem. Don’t make it too wide. It needs to be actionable. Having quantification in the problem definition always helps.
  
• Diagnosis of why you believe the problem exists.
• Options (3-4 in total) & Suggest Solution of what you think the right answer is including time, cost to implement and other asks - you need to tell somebody your preferred answer. don’t make them guess.

ref:

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/08/14/bring-people-solutions-not-problems/

http://personalexcellence.co/blog/you-are-the-ceo-of-your-life/

http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-to-control-your-dreams/

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Kanabe/CEO_of_Your_Life.shtml

Interesting Columns ... Good Read

1. How Genius think - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-thinkering/201109/how-geniuses-think

(GENIUSES LOOK AT PROBLEMS IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS; GENIUSES MAKE THEIR THOUGHTS VISIBLE; GENIUSES CONNECT UN_CONNECTED THINGS AND MAKE SENSE OUT OF THINGS OTHERWISE GO BLIND ...)

2. Change is inevitable so plan for it - http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2005/05/07/career-change-is-inevitable-so-plan-for-it/

(Today people start working when they are 22 and don’t stop until they are 65 or older. It makes sense that the career you pick when you are a 22 will not be appropriate when you are 44. People change. Thank goodness, or else we would get bored being ourselves.)

3. Resume advice you never heard - http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/10/05/resume-advice-you-never-hear/

(If you cannot tell stories about yourself from multiple angles, then the single story you have on that paper controls the rest of your life. You deserve more than that)

4. 16 Ways to Jump-start Creativity - http://creativethinking.net/articles/2011/02/15/jump-start-creativity/

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BRAINSTORMING BOARD

Put up a bulletin board in a central area and encourage people to use it to brainstorm ideas. Write a theme or problem on a colored card and place it in the center of the board. Provide pieces of white paper on which people can write their ideas to post on the board. E.g. suppose you have difficulty closing a particular sale. You could describe the sale situation on a colored card, post it on the brainstorming board and ask people to post their ideas and suggestions.

STUPID IDEA WEEK

Make idea generating fun. Have a “Stupid Idea” week and stage a contest for the dumbest ideas. Post entries on a bulletin board and conduct an awards ceremony with a prize. You’ll enjoy the camaraderie and may find that the stupid ideas stimulate good ones.

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5. An Interview with Michael Michalko about Creative Thinking - http://creativethinking.net/articles/2011/09/13/an-interview-with-michael-michalko-about-creative-thinkering/

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Children are naturally creative. Why do so many lose that talent as they grow older?

We were all born spontaneous and creative. Every one of us. As children we accepted all things equally. We embraced all kinds of outlandish possibilities for all kinds of things. When we were children we knew a box was much more than a container. A box could be a fort, a car, a tank, a cave, a house, something to draw on, and even a space helmet. Our imaginations were not structured according to some existing concept or category. We did not strive to eliminate possibilities, we strove to expand them. We were all amazingly creative and always filled with the joy of exploring different ways of thinking.

And then something happened to us, we went to school. We were not taught how to think, we were taught to reproduce what past thinkers thought. When confronted with a problem, we were taught to analytically select the most promising approach based on past history, excluding all other approaches, and then to work logically within a carefully defined direction towards a solution. Instead of being taught to look for possibilities, we were taught to look for ways to exclude them. It’s as if we entered school as a question mark and graduated as a period.

Thomas Edison made it a habit to keep a lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully on other problems in other fields. To Edison, your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you’re working on.

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