by John Brooker | Apr 30, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #110 You must ensure everybody involved in tackling a situation understands it. This is essential if you wish to find a long lasting solution… “It was some relief for Morse to recognise the fair countenance of reason once more, and she greeted him serenely when he woke, clear headed, on Monday morning and told him that it would be no bad idea to have a quiet look at the problem itself before galloping off towards a solution.” Colin Dexter, author in “Service of all the Dead” Chapter 12 Are you tackling the right problem? In an Internet chat room recently I noticed an elderly lady had posted a problem she wanted help with. Essentially, she wondered what she could do next in her life to give it some more challenge. (Which I agree is more of an opportunity than a problem). Very soon, up popped a response from a contributor advising her to take up painting “because that’s what my grandmother did”. All credit to this respondent for contributing and I am sure they had a positive intent but… already someone had come up with a solution and we knew little about the situation, other than the lady was elderly. Yes, it may well have been exactly the right answer, but equally it may have been completely wrong. This reminded me so much of what often happens in organisations, “Here are some symptoms of a problem;” “Aha, here’s a solution we used before on a similar issue”; put it in to action and voila! The problem reappears a few weeks later...
