I remember hitching a ride with a friend and he accidentally bumped his car against a post. As he drove on, this time with a pronounced bump on his fender, he muttered “I’m so ashamed of myself.”

I kid thee not. I heard it as clear as day.

Don’t get me wrong. When something goes wrong, it’s normal to feel bad.

But why do some people take it so personally that they feel like dirt? Strangely, there are people who are quick to forgive others but they just can’t forgive themselves. They love beating themselves up. In so doing, they are letting a joyless past rob them of a joyful present.

The root cause seems to be that we are clinging to an idealized image of ourselves. In the case of my friend, he wanted to be a flawless driver, with nary a scratch on the paint job. When his car “kissed” that post, it wasn’t just the fender which suffered a dent that day.

Are you still wincing over a bum decision you made ages ago?

Perhaps the perfectionist image you are harboring (and you may not even know it) is one where you are so smart that you will always make the right choices. Then when the opposite happened, that image taunts you “How can you be so stupid? You should have known better!” And you, poor you, moan “Yeah, yeah! Guilty!”

So what’s the solution? Loosen up on that perfectionism. Instead, pursue excellence.

Let us admit that we will inevitably do something that we will later wish we didn’t. Until someone invents a time machine, it’s part of life. It comes with being human. That way, we cut ourselves some slack. Sure, we may still feel regret, but the sting will not be as paralyzing.

Then, armed with lessons from the past, we will make wiser decisions and do more of the right deeds.

It is impossible to lead a perfect life. But it is never too late to lead an excellent one.
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In fact, it is never too late for a friend to become a careful yet happy driver.
 

“God is preparing His heroes and, when they appear, the world will wonder where they came from.” - Attributed to A. B. Simpson

The person who wants to “make an impact on the world” is not the one who just charges headlong into the fray. Rather, God must first impact that person before he can make an impact on anything.

Consider Moses. Raised in Pharaoh’s palace, he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was powerful in speech and action. Despite this privileged life, he apparently sympathized with his fellowmen, the Hebrews, who were being oppressed in Egypt.

The book of Exodus gives the story. After Moses had grown up, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.  Checking that there were no witnesses, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. But somehow his murder was discovered anyway. Pharaoh wanted him dead, so Moses fled into the desert and stayed there for forty years. He toiled as a shepherd of his father-in-law’s flocks.

What a let-down it must have been for Moses! Before, he was leading men; now he was leading dumb, bleating sheep. Shepherding was hard work: sleepless nights, constant danger of predators, scrounging for water and grass.

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, gone was all of his bravado. God called him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, and Moses stammered excuse after excuse. He even told God to appoint someone else. The Lord’s anger burned against Moses, which I suspect finally persuaded him to sign up for the job.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Moses’ name is revered all over the world.

The wilderness is God’s crucible where He purges all our self-sufficiencies and sin-tainted ambition. Those of us who dream of doing great things must first pass through this arduous phase.

Do you feel like you’re in a wilderness right now? Perhaps it is covid-related. Several months of being locked up at home? Lost your job and now desperately finding new income? Worried sick about the health of family members?

I know it's bad. But take heart. God chooses His heroes. He then takes great care in preparing them. There are no short cuts. It may take a long time, perhaps so long that the one being prepared may wonder when – or even if – his training will ever end.

Such are the men and women whom God is pleased to use. But let us submit to Him as sturdy and sharpened arrows so that in the proper time, He brings us out of His quiver, directs us to His targets and unleashes us in power.

Now… back to the tasks that await us today.

Photo from Ganapathy Kumar, Unsplash

Which do you think is worse: having bias or having limits?

Bias is about what you think should be. Limits are about what you think cannot be. There are people who immediately think how a problem cannot be solved, such as no budget, no manpower, no capacity, and so on.

Given that logic, I would rather be saddled with bias because, at least, I would still try to solve a problem, although imperfectly. If I were obsessed with limits, I would probably shut down.

Therefore, the third “no” is: no limits.

The technique is to ask, “What needs to be done to solve this problem?” Notice the possibility language presupposes no limits. For example, if I have a machine problem, I don’t say, “What’s the use? Chances are the machine needs a new part and I don’t have the budget for it.” The correct thinking is, “I will pretend money is no object. Now, what needs to be done with the machine?” It may be or may not be to buy that new part.

Of course, there are limits in the real world. Money is one of them. But I always tell my technical people, “Don’t be afraid of issuing purchase requisitions because you think the item is expensive and higher management won’t approve it. Get the PR out if you think that leads to the solution. Let higher management worry about where they will get the money.” Then after they issue the PR, we work together on a business case to persuade that very higher management to release the money.

Time is another obvious limit. I once asked a problem-solving trainer, “When can you say that a problem is unsolvable? You’re doing your very best to solve a problem. But how would you know if the problem really has no solution at all, versus there is indeed a solution but you just have to persevere until you discover it?” The trainer said something like, “When there is a deadline and you just missed it.”

Hmmm. Actually, it depends whether the deadline can be negotiated or not. If it’s a government mandate - “file your taxes by April 30” or “observe the curfew of 8 pm to 5 am” – then I suppose there’s not much you can do about it. But if, say, I am to finish something by October 1 and I’m behind by September 28, I may ask for an extension.

My take is that a problem is unsolvable when it calls for violating the laws of chemistry and physics. For example, if I have a machine already running 24/7 and I want it to produce more, I can’t feed it with 100 tons of raw material and expect 150 tons of output. That’s creating something out of nothing. I have to find some other ways, such as increase machine speed or reduce rejection rates.

So there you have it. To be an excellent problem-solver, remember the Three Noes: no fear, no bias, no limits. Pretty soon, you’ll say, “No problem!”

Doesn’t it frustrate you when you are talking to someone and he cuts you off, saying, “I know what you’re thinking”? It gets more vexing when he’s wrong. 

Similarly, beware that when you are given a problem, you have an idea of what’s wrong and what needs to be done. But you can be wrong, even expensive wrong.

That’s why my second “no” for problem solving is: no bias.
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Bias is tricky because you may not even be aware you have them. Just recently, I was discussing a pesky problem with my production head. There were certain raw materials that kept jamming up a machine, costing us recurring downtime. 

I couldn’t understand the head’s explanation until I realized something: I was visualizing the jamming to be happening at the start of the production process, whereas it was really towards the end. Correcting that bias freed me to move forward towards an action plan.

What makes a great problem-solver? Actually, it is not knowing everything about a subject.

One executive coach told me, “Let’s say I have a technical director as my client. I don’t need to know every detail of his production process. But I need to know how to ask the right questions so that he can have clarity. From there, he can arrive at the best possible decisions.”

Being a great problem-solver does not mean you have the answers, but knowing where to find the answers. For that, you would need the three noes. Here's the first.

No fear. From my experience, the number one obstacle is emotional, not intellectual. For example, the problem-solver is afraid that his ideas will be shot down or that people will not cooperate.

One thing I observed when you start “adulting” is that you have to figure out how life works. In school, you were pretty much told what to do: study these subjects, show up on these class schedules, observe these norms of acceptable behavior and so on. If you follow the rules, you will get your diploma.

The problem begins when you enter the “real world” and rules don’t exactly come in a silver platter. I suspect this is the major reason why many young people feel kind of lost, depressed or anxious. They need principles to guide them through this VUCA world.

Doreen Cooper’s book, #Adulting: 5 Secrets to Embracing Change in Life & Career, provides those principles. Each of those “5 Secrets” correspond to a major area of life: career, network, money, self-development and productivity.

Doreen defines her life purpose as empowering professionals by helping them build knowledge and skill, thereby producing greater success in life and work. Among her specialties are learning facilitation, personal branding and communications strategy. Through this book, she adds another component: practical wisdom.
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The value of #Adulting is that it is written from the crucible of struggle and frustration. This is no rah-rah, shallow self-help book. Doreen made the gutsy move of leaving a secure job in McKinsey to become a “solo-preneur” in the training business.

Through sheer dint, Doreen was able to establish a name for herself and conducted workshops for well-known corporations and organizations. She has garnered impressive credentials such as:

• Being recognized by Salt & Light Ventures as the highest rated speaker for in-house training sessions in 2018.
• Being voted as one of the Top 100 Filipinos to follow in Linkedin in 2019.
• Attaining Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) status in 2020. Toastmasters is a global organization dedicated to help people become better public speakers and leaders. DTM is the highest rank conferred on a Toastmaster member.

Along the way, she wished for people who would tell her what she needed to know, but didn’t. That poignant quality lingers in her writing, whereby you sense “I am sharing what I know so you don’t have to struggle as I did.”
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From my experience, here are a few pitfalls in problem-solving:

1. Not identifying the correct problem.
2. Being distracted by the by-product or side issue of the real problem.
3. Deciding on an easy-to-do solution which does not really address the problem.

Consider this real-life example:

We make carton boards that require surfaces of paper being glued to each other. One day, we had problems of poor gluing: the paper layers kept separating. The presenter gave the usual fishbone: man, machine, materials, methods, and so on. He said that the root cause was that the nozzles (which discharges the glue onto the paper) kept on clogging. Therefore, preventive action was to keep the nozzles clean.

But the true root cause was that the machine was not formulating the glue properly. The glue became too viscous, thereby clogging the nozzles. The true solution was to open up the machine and painstakingly test every mechanism.

True enough, we found some defective sensors and replaced them. The machine weighed and mixed the ingredients according to an approved recipe. Sure, we still had to clean the nozzles. But if we didn’t address the machine, clogging will soon recur. We will have an endless (not to mention, expensive) cycle of clog-shutdown-and-clean, clog-shutdown-and-clean. Preventive action was to have regular audits of the gluing machine.

The presenter (1) missed the real problem (saying it lies with the nozzles), (2) distracted by the by-product of the problem (the clogged nozzles) and (3) deciding on a solution because it was the easiest to do (clean the nozzles).

Here’s a guide for solution-checking:

How do I know this is the real problem? Answer: If you believe you have identified the problem and applied the solution, but the problem recurs, then it means you have attacked the symptom but not the disease.

How do I know I have covered all grounds? Answers: Look at the whole process. Do not assume. Always verify. Ask the “what if’s”.

Would my analysis and conclusion violate any logic, such as non-sequitors or false dichotomy? Tip: Have a peer (or better, SME) critique your work.

We all heard that the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. But that is not enough. That first step must be in the correct direction and that we do not stray along the way. Problem-solving is like that. Define the right problem and don't stray from the process. Then you will reach your destination: a headache-free environment.

Note: This article is excerpted from my signature module Creating a Problem-Solving Culture, which seeks to empower both leaders and followers tap their reservoir of creativity and wisdom. For queries, please feel free to message me.

It seems every office has the resident gossiper who flitters from cubicle to cubicle spreading tidbits of information.

What do you do?

A wise friend gave me a piece of advice which spared me from a lot of potential trouble: Don’t play switchboard.

Resist the lure of false intimacy. We know it’s wrong. But why does gossip feel so goooood? Because it creates the illusion that we belong to an inner, privileged circle. Gossipers approach you with a pretext of, “I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but since you’re my friend…”

If we are not getting any juicy morsels from the grapevine, then we feel like outsiders. We are simply not “in.” Hence, rather than coping with an awkward feeling of rejection, we are likely to open our ears to the switchboard.

It works both ways. We want to please other people, so we release rumors of our own. The sad part is that if we succumb to this temptation, we have sacrificed our integrity on the altar of fickle popularity. Worse, we will be branded as someone who can’t keep a secret. Our bosses will think twice before entrusting us with sensitive information.

The best antidote is to be secure in yourself such that if you want friendships, it has to be based on integrity and on mutual trust. If they won’t like you because you clam up on office secrets, well, that’s their problem.

Direct the gossiper to the person he is talking about. Suppose someone comes to you and begins to gripe or whine about somebody else (usually the boss). Rather than gasp, “Really? He did that?” and spread the tale around with embellishments of your own, nip it in the bud.

When you smell a gossip brewing, don’t let the tattler drone on before you suggest, “That sounds serious. Why don’t you bring the matter directly to that person?” If the gossiper is not comfortable with the idea, offer to accompany him to see the source of his problems. (Warning: Be sure he is not manipulating you to fight his battles for him.) If the gossiper still refuses, then decline to hear more from him.

At the very least, act in self-preservation. Those whom you consider as friends but keep feeding you with gossip are not really your friends at all. What is to prevent them from gossiping to others about you?

Conversely, if you are talking against somebody behind his back, your listener may be thinking “Hmmm… and I wonder what you are saying about me behind my back?” Brought to its logical conclusion, trust is gone, paranoia and cynicism reign, and teamwork goes down the tubes.

Being trusted is one of the prime requisites for career success. But you cannot do that by being a tattle-tale. So take the long view and the high road. Don’t entertain gossip and don’t pass on gossip yourself.
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The switchboard stops with you. This week.