Outcome Thinking^® Blog

Think It Through using Outcome Thinking®

A towel gets wet while drying.  Which brings me to the shower.

Did you know that your best ideas usually come when you are working out, showering, or doing a pleasant activity?  They don’t come at your work desk.

So what do you do to bring in new environments to spur new ideas?  Keep having fun and enjoying all around you?

Are you starting to see the stretching in your brain from all these riddles?  You will start to see it in the way you will make new and odd connections of things.  In the way you will see someone in a meeting in a whole new light and in the concepts you will begin to grasp that may have alluded you in the past.

Here is your riddle for tomorrow:

He who has it doesn’t tell it. He who takes it doesn’t know it. He who knows it doesn’t want it. What is it?

Tenacity is a gift or a curse depending, not on how you use it, but on what you ANCHOR it on.

Tenacity is a gift if you are deligent about sorting out and questioning to get all the facts on the table and removing negative assumptions, opinions, or inferences.  Then once you are looking at the facts you can then open your brain to looking at new ways of doing things.  You can improve upon past mistakes and you can proceed where others say it is impossible.

That is just what Juhammad Yunus did when he wanted to start a bank for the poor in 1972.  He studied the problem and found that the average amount a person needed to start a cottage industry in Bangledesh was $27 but the banks didn’t want to do loans for such a small amount to people who had no collateral.  Juhammed thought there must be a solution here.  So he studied all the banks and did the exact opposite!  All his loans are unsecured, based on trust, given to those who have little and are given on the faith of the long-term dream.  Most of the loans are given to women who want to provide for their family.  And the bank is a huge success for the last 39 years!

He had tenacity to believe in his dream, he studied factually what was happening, and then used his persistance to make his dream happen when others told him it was ridiculous.

Tenacity based, not on fact, leads to judgemental thinking and stereotype thinking.  You see this every day when businesses don’t realign with the customer requests or needs.  This is when businesses die off.  Currently tenacity is hurting the training industry as there is so much belief that people have to be in a classroom to learn.  In reality what they need is an effective way to make learning happen daily.

So when you are working on something ask if you tenacity is working for you or against you?  Is it based on facts or opinions & assumptions?

Tenacity used properly is a powerful tool.

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Thinking at the Speed of Light: Two critical ingredients you need to succeed! 

I find it interesting that most executives tell me they wish people would get to the point right up front and most people tell me they don’t feel their executives listen.

Hmm.. What’s  happening here?

For most of you when you go in and talk to your executives you see it as your one time to shine and show all that you have done so far.  For the executives they see it as a time for them to see how what you are doing is helping the organization reach its larger goals.  So they aren’t listening to how YOU look but rather they are looking for did you THINK THROUGH IT from that higher perspective.

Here are the three big errors I see leaders make when presenting to executives:

1. Assuming the leaders are highly intelligent and that sharing the big picture of what they are there to discuss would be “redundant.”  Just because the leader asked you to present to them doesn’t mean they remember exactly what you were talk on or why.  Remember their brain power is on the big picture.  Therefore what you present they are weighing against all the other top priorities on their plate.

2. Assuming the executives want to know all the details.  What the executives  want to know is that YOU know all the details and you see how they fit with the BIG PICTURE.  Yes they will drill you with questions so yes you want to have the detail handy but you don’t need to SHOW them all.  You just need to know which are relevant to the big picture.

3. Assuming that the executives are way above you and you are there to get their approval.  As soon as you tune your brain in to asking for approval, you put yourself in a passive role.  You should have a good grasp of what you are doing, why you are doing it and how it fits in to the organization overall.  This means that you are clear and upfront about any challenges, obstacles or benefits you see.  You should be the one guiding the conversation and you should know what information you need from them and what outcome you would like.   Your job is to have an active engaged conversation with them so there are no surprises later on.

So next time you go in and speak to the executives, think about what you are presenting from THEIR perspective.  Don’t try to dazzle them but instead just engage and talk with them.  The more you engage as an equal the more they will see the value of your thinking.  Bottom line it is your job to be the executive of your area and to give them the information they need to support you, challenge you and engage you so you achieve the greatest success possible for the organization.

TAKE ACTION:

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Thinking at the Speed of Light: Two critical ingredients you need to succeed!