Are You Choosing Your Problems?

Photo by Kyle Johnston

Good News & Bad News

You have problems.

You are going to have more problems.

Solving today's problems allows you to tackle a whole new set of problems tomorrow.

Problems & Leadership

Problems, challenges, difficulties, struggles - whatever you call them, problems are not unique to leaders. Problems are part of living. If you are alive, you will have problems.

Leaders just choose a particular set of problems.

Choose Your Problems

You do not get to choose IF you will have problems.

But often, you do get to choose WHICH set of problems you will have.

Effective leaders don't spend time trying to avoid problems. Rather, they put their energy into working on the right set of problems. 

Which set of problems are the right ones? That depends on your values, vision, and goals. What are you trying to do? Which set of problems, once solved, will get you closer to where you want to be?

How It Works

Here's a sample we're all familiar with: We can choose a set of problems related to exercise - finding time, dealing with discomfort, etc. Or we can choose a set of problems related to carrying extra pounds and lack of strength.

Now for a leadership example: You have a team member who consistently under-performs and others team members are carrying extra responsibility. 

You've got a choice of problems: You can choose problems related to ignoring the situation - your team is stressed, the individual never improves their abilities, and your leadership credibility declines. 

Or you can choose problems related to addressing the situation - learning how to have performance conversations, being disliked or misjudged, and the discomfort of confrontation.

Each set of problems leads to different outcomes. Which do you want?

Freedom

There is great freedom when you realize that problems are unavoidable and begin choosing which ones you will have. No longer is your energy wasted in the hopeless effort of avoidance.

You will even find yourself energized as you live in alignment with your own values, vision, and goals.

Read More:

The Only Way Out
Lead from the In-Between
One Word to Freedom
Book Review: The Oz Principle
Book Review: The Question Behind the Question

Take care,

David M. Dye

Know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog?
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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Four Key Practices for Every Organizational Leader

Photo by m4tik

If you're leading an organization - whether a team, a company, or a group of volunteers - there are four things the organization requires to be successful. Effective organizational leaders consistently do these four things:

1. Focus on Results

Your organization exists to accomplish something. Organizational leaders keep everyone focused on those results. They will make changes in systems or personnel if either hinder the team's ultimate purpose.

Why does your team exist? What does it accomplish or produce outside of itself?

2. Develop People

People are the most important resource in any organization. Effective organizational leaders devote a significant amount of their time to ensuring people are properly trained, equipped with the resources they need, and matured as leaders.

Do your team members have the skills and resources they need to be effective? Who will carry the team's vision when you are gone? Are they carrying that vision now?

3. Cultivate Values

Every group of people has a culture of how it conducts business, how people treat each other, and how problems are resolved. Values are the foundation of this culture. Too often, values are just words on a wall. Effective organizational leaders consistently model, reinforce, and celebrate organizational values. As a result, they grow an organizational culture.

What are the unwritten rules in your team? How do people treat one another? How are problems resolved?

4. Promote Organizational Learning

Effective organizations regularly evaluate themselves against their environment and their own goals. Organizational leaders promote learning, not just at the individual level, but at the level of the team/organization. Effective leaders do not waste time placing blame for past problems, but continually ask their teams to think about how things can be done more effectively in the future.

How do you institutionalize learning? How does your team discover what worked and why it worked? How do they address future improvements?

More Than the Sum of Its Parts

Organizations are more than just a collection of individuals. They develop a life and energy of their own. As an organizational leader, your role is to actively develop that energy and keep it focused.

Take care,

David M. Dye

Know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog?

Please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @davidmdye

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmdye

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Death to the Colorblind?

Photo by Duncan Harris

In my office there is a sticker given to me by my sister. The sticker is a red-green color blindness test: a field of green dots interspersed with orange and red dots.

Apparently, the orange and red dots spell out "Death to the colorblind."

I say "apparently" because I am unable to read the words, despite having been told repeatedly what they say. I have a form of red-green colorblindness and so cannot see these words in the same way that normal-sighted people see them.

I keep this sticker in my office as a constant reminder that not everyone sees the world the way I do. People are an amazing mix of personality types, heritage, experiences, values, and so on. Even my deepest convictions might not be shared by someone who sees the world through a different history and a different pair of eyes.

Leaders do well to remember the diversity of perspectives in the teams they lead and to ensure those voices are incorporated into decision-making. This doesn't mean always trying to satisfy every opinion. It does mean remaining humble enough to know that there is always something we don't know.

Thanks, sis.

David M. Dye

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @davidmdye
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-dye/b/a08/82
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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.