I just came back from a fabulous trip with some girlfriends golfing. Getting away from the cold and snow of Minnesota to sunny Florida was great but the getting there…not so great. Airline travel is one of the industries I can’t wait to see revamped. It is easy to see all the ways it is broken but it is hard to think of the ways you could revamp it and make it better.
Things I think about: how could they improve the boarding? What about seat assignments or gate connections? Air circulation in planes?
I also realize that the air industry is fighting challenges we don’t even realize. For example, Americans are 25% heavier than they were in the 1960’s. Think about what that means in terms of seats, food, plane weight, air fuel–there are a lot of things affected due to the larger size of individuals. That is not the airlines fault but it is a fact they need to address.
With the leaders we coach I love hearing how they have stretched their thinking to solve, not only a current problem, but prevent a future one. Just recently I had a leader who had to move around some people on his team but how he did it was a testament to his ability to strategically think through things so people remained motivated, committed and excited about the changes. This is actually amazing due to the fact that some individuals had to move laterally, some down and some up. It was a situation that could have been contentious but was done with such grace that all feel assured they are where they should be.
Try this month to look around and see what things you would improve on, how you would improve them and what could be unintended consequences down the line that you would need to think about.
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Outcome Thinking® Solution
How to mitigate unintended consequences
by Anne Warfield
Today’s ezine is going to be a slightly different format than usual. Since we are relatively early in the new year I want to address a chronic problem I see cropping up again and again in leadership and it can have absolutely ugly dismal results. That is the problem of “the unintended consequence”.
I see so many leaders solving a problem that is immediately upon them with only a thought to “how do I get rid of this problem right now?” The difficulty with this thinking is that your brain immediately latches on to the FIRST BEST solution that removes the problem. What it DOESN’T DO is look at what could be unintended consequences IF you apply that solution. In other words, your brain is on very short term thinking, not long term.
Some consequences are good:
Like how clocks became important with the invention of the train. Prior to that a clock was of little importance because you took a horse wherever you needed to go, stores closed at dark (easy to time) and you pretty much stayed around your town. But with the invention of the train you all of a sudden had people traveling from one city to the next so they needed to know exactly when to get to the station and you had to make sure two trains didn’t come in to a station at the same time or you would have a deadly disaster.
Other consequences are good and bad:
Like it is actually cheaper today to buy your children a car and insure it than it is to insure your own car to have them drive provided you drive a relatively nice car. Because of this, you now have the unintended consequences of more cars on the road, more gas pollutants due to the extra cars, need for more parking spaces, teens have more freedom and access to things since they don’t have to “wait” for their parents’ car—lots of consequences due to one insurance change.
Or the No Child Left Behind motto. Again, a noble cause, but once it got instituted children kept advancing in school WHETHER they were qualified or not. So instead of holding on to our standards and holding children accountable to learning to that standard, we turned an eye and kept moving them forward.
Just yesterday I talked to an 8th grade teacher who finally quit teaching. She told me, “Anne I had some children in my classes that read at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. It just made teaching too frustrating and hard as I couldn’t even level set the class to teach them new things moving forward.”
So I encourage you to really dig deep and look at problems to see what you could do to FOREVER solve them. Think through each of the possible consequences down the road for any decision that you make. I encourage you to hand over the problem to another leader along with your solution and ask them to point out all the things that could go wrong with it in 6 months, one year or five years down the road. Figure out how to mitigate any of the problems now so you eliminate unintended consequences.
Deal of the Month!
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Quoteable Quotes
“Belief is a thought you have kept long enough and intense enough.”
~ Dr. Sue Morter
How to make a tough decision more easily
As a leader you are constantly being asked to make tough decisions. The following are typical themes I hear when leaders are having to make a tough decision- “I am not sure how Mary will feel about it,” “Tom might take it the wrong way,” “Jim’s a great guy but I am not sure he can lead this group.”
Follow these 4 steps to create a safe environment for discussions
1. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself, “What can I do to make the environment safe for people to share ideas, disagree, and challenge when appropriate?” other person.
“My presentations in the past were not concise nor did I share with the audience a clear Roadmap™.
I also did not come from my audience’s point of view. Now that I’ve attended Managing Your Message I am more thoughtful of my audience, gearing my information to their needs. I start with what outcome I am expecting. This is a great training. It’s well worth the time and investment. A good team building experience.”
Amy Bates, Director of Customer Service, Jostens
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