Cortex Leadership Consulting

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One Path to Solving Your Biggest Problems at Work

Try this Path to Problem Solving this week

Problem SolvingIt can be confusing.  One minute you need to smooth over an upset team member.  The next, you need to hit a deadline on a report that is due.  You need to jump on a conference call and send out an email to that customer that wants a quick response.  You get to Friday and it feels like nothing truly important got done.  A month can go by you’re still battling the same issues you did last quarter.  What are you supposed to focus on?  Is it what the customer wants?  Or is it what you promised your team member you would get done? Maybe the most important task is getting that report that was due last week finished and sent out?

It’s easy to say you need to focus on the intersection between what truly matters and that which you can control.  It is much harder to pinpoint exactly what those things are and most importantly, to execute them.

Start here.

Begin with the end in mind by filling in the blanks because it’s important to create clarity before trying to solve any problem you are facing:

  1. If we get to the end of the year and ________________ is not complete the consequences will be significant to our team or organization.
  2. If we don’t ____________________________, we will not complete that thing that has such high consequences.
  3. What we need to do is ___________________________, to make certain we complete that thing.

Try this if you are stuck.

  1. Am I or are we focusing on things that are not within our control right now and therefore wasting time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere? Do we know what right will look like December 31, 2018?
  2. What is within our control right now, that we can change, fix, or complete? Do those tasks or issues work towards our goal of what right looks like?
  3. Is there anything that can be removed from our task list so that we can fully focus on tackling the things that matter most to achieving what right looks like on December 31, 2018?

If all else fails, do this.

  1. Stop. Really.  Just stop.  You could be operating from a place of anxiety which will not result in the best outcomes or your highest-level thinking.  Take a day to observe what is really happening in yours or others work flow.  You could be dealing with a systems issue.  If you have time to redo things constantly and fix things that are messed up or done improperly you have time to observe and plan for better outcomes.
  2. Get a thinking pair. Find someone who will ask you great questions and be curious about what you are doing, how you are doing things, and why you are doing certain things at all.  Curiosity is key here.  Your thinking pair is not an “expert” but rather a specialist in asking great questions that bring out our highest-level thinking.  The answers are there, you may not be seeing them from the perspective you are at.
  3. Unplug and relax. Sometimes we’ve worn ourselves out trying to solve the same problems over and over again.  Our brain needs a break.  Take a drive.  Go for a walk or run.  Turn off your phone, don’t check your email for a few hours, take some nice deep breaths and allow your brain to do its best job possible to solve some of your toughest problems.

Finally, it’s important to remember that competence breeds confidence.  You got this!

 

 

 

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One Thing That Could Matter Most in Resolving Conflicts at Work

One Thing That Could Matter Most in Resolving Conflicts at Work
by:  Lynda McNutt Foster

If you think that you aren’t supposed to experience conflict at work or there is a way to completely avoid it, you’re probably not going to get very good at resolving it when it arises.  Good people, with great intentions can have misunderstandings, let one another down, breach trust at some level, or just get pretty annoyed at the other person just because they spend so much time together at work.  It’s common to look at another person and think that what they did was just “weird” and can I just say it because so many people think it, “stupid”.

To get better at being a leader you’ll need to practice navigating conflicts and many of those conflicts come from people not seeing the other person’s perspective or point of view.  Conflicts become worse when people think that their point of view is the “right” one and that the other person “should” have done something different than they did.

A recent Fast Company article entitled, All Your CoWorkers Behaviors, Explained stood out to me.  Two out of three of the ways to explain “weird” behavior are things we talk about in our training frequently which are traits (different behavioral types as described in DISC assessments) and goals (which align with the Motivators or Driving Forces assessments).  It can help to resolve a conflict, or even avoid one, by understanding which behavioral types you are dealing with and what is going to motivate them to reach their goals.  If you know what someone’s goals are it helps in understanding what they are focused on.

The situation matters.

The third explanation of why a coworker may behave a certain way was one that comes up during one-on-one coaching sessions.  It is about discovering the situation or context of the behavior you are observing.  The situation someone finds themselves is can have a significant effect on what decisions they make.  It takes time to listen for the facts of a situation.  Some people aren’t that good at explaining their situation or don’t have a great memory to communicate the facts well.  Others give TOO many facts and data about their situation which requires patience and concentration to decipher.

It can be quite the slippery slope of a time trap to even ask about the details of a situation, so you want to make sure they matter.  They usually don’t if the conflict is of a minor nature or the problem seems based in drama.  It’s a good rule of thumb to dig into the situation if you see a consistent pattern or patterns of behavior occurring.  There could be a very good reason why one of the people is acting the way that they are.

For instance, people can get pretty upset when they perceive that one of their teammates isn’t pulling their weight.   They may feel that they have to make up for the lack of work by the other team member and they can perceive that as unfair.  Whether it is or it isn’t you are probably going to be navigating a conflict, whether someone has voiced it or not.  Perhaps there isn’t clarity around what the roles, responsibilities, and expectations are for each member of the team.  Maybe, the expectations of the team member that is upset are not reasonable for the project or circumstance.  It could also be true that the team member that is being seen as not pulling their weight is dealing with a situation that others are not aware of and that has not been communicated, or perhaps cannot be.

I coached a leader once, let’s call him “Joe”, that took over a department in which 3 of the 5 members he inherited in his new position were unable to do their job.  One was very ill and had to frequently call out sick, another was dealing with an emotional issue that caused them to be withdrawn and extremely limited in their ability to complete tasks.  Still the other one was simply someone that was close to retirement and believed they could “coast” through the last few years of their employment with the organization.

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