There Are Easy Solutions to Complicated Problems

The two most difficult roadblocks to success in resolving hard problems are the presence of real trade-offs and considerations of power.

Most complicated problems and difficult conflicts have simple solutions. We often confuse what we believe is a hard solution with a complicated one. What makes solutions to hard problems not easy are the presence of trade-offs (scare resources in scare environments) and power.

In a world of scarce resources (the two scarcest being time and attention these days…even more than money) the trade-offs that must be made to create the space for solutions to your most pressing conflicts can seem insurmountable.

Here are a few (of many) trade-offs. Each one can either represent a zero-sum trade-off or an even exchange trade-off:

Conflict or Apathy

Attention or Ignorance

Awareness or Ennui

Momentum or Slowness

Going Along or Resisting

Reassurances or Courage

Change or Status Quo

Focused or Distracted

Power is the consideration behind most forms of fear. Either a lack of power or power focused in an area that doesn’t benefit getting to a solution. That power is often cloaked in reassurances and comes with a healthy dose of resistance.

We often confuse easy with simple in our own minds. Easy solutions to conflicts usually involve the kinds of solutions that favor whatever trade-off benefits us and validates our perspective.

Easy solutions also preserve our power (maintaining the status quo), or grow our power in each conflict situation. Hard solutions take away or diminish our power, as well as go against whatever trade-off we’d like to have honored.

What makes solutions hard to simple problems is that we are often blind to what is hard, and are aware of what is easy.

Be sure that you are making trade-offs you can live with, in a search for complicated solutions to hard problems.

Change Comes Upon Us Gradually

Change comes upon us gradually.

Change comes in our organizations when we hire one person, and then two, and then more, who think differently about the mission, vision, values, and goals of the organization.

Change comes when the people (or persons) at the top of a hierarchy choose to give up their power over and engage in power with; and, not as a marketing ploy or with lip service.

Change comes when a person in an organization, decides to take a risk, stand up, challenge the status quo respectfully, firmly, and consistently.

Change comes when technology creeps into systems that we once believed were sacrosanct, but are now revealed to be hollow.

Change comes when we are lamenting the things that have passed and are looking with fear at the future that has yet to come.

And then, change is upon us all at once.

And we collectively can’t remember a time when the change wasn’t the norm.

Rejection Without Shame

Rejection comes in a litany of flavors:

“We don’t have any conflicts here.”

“We deal with conflicts really well here.”

“We don’t really need your services right now, but if we do, we’ll give you a call.”

“[silence]. Who are you again?”

“How do you say your name?”

“I don’t understand how anybody can make money from doing what you do.”

“How do you monetize that?”

“Yeah, your rates are too high.”

“Yeah, your rates are too low.”

“I don’t understand what you are selling.”

“Why can’t you help me NOW?”

“Where did you get your degree again?”

“How do you make it here in this town?”

“Where are you from again?”

“Hmmmm. Ok. That sounds kind of interesting.” [Then wander off to get bread at the networking event ‘nosh’ table.]

“Have you tried working for a human resource company?”

“Have you tried working with [insert name of big company here]?”

“I don’t understand what you just said that you do.”

“There aren’t any people around here doing that are there?”

“Could you not charge me as much?”

“We’re strapped for cash right now and not really focused on retaining outside help right now.”

“Your rates are too high; you’ll never make a profit around here.”

“We are a family company. There aren’t any conflicts among family.”

“I handle conflict really well; I don’t see how I would use your services.”

“Have you tried working with lawyers around here?”

“We can’t pay you.”

“We’ll get back to you.”

“We can’t pay you.”

“Can you do this for free for us?”

“We can’t pay you.”

“Send us your information and we’ll look at it.” >click<

“I just don’t have time to talk to you, call back next week.” [Call back again next week]

“I just don’t have time to talk to you, call back next week.” >click<

“That sounds interesting, but I don’t want you to drive all the way to [name location 25 miles in any direction from locally] to meet me. It would just be a waste of your time.”

“You’ll never make a living doing that. You should get a ‘real’ job.”

“You went to college for CONFLICT!?”

“Why don’t you just volunteer?”

Very rarely have we ever heard “No,” “No thank you,” or “No this isn’t for us.”

Although ultimately, the fact is that all the forms of rejection really come down to such a consideration. All the forms of rejection can be given without personally attacking, trolling, tearing down individuals’ talent, and questioning people’s motives. But when rejection crosses the line from “No this isn’t for us” to “You don’t deserve to have a voice,” or “You need to be denied the ability to speak because I disagree with you,” then we’ve crossed over the line into another area.

And we must be careful with what lines we cross because sometimes, there is no going back.

We Don’t Need More Political Solutions to Leadership Temptations

Organizational inertia is exacerbated when leaders succumb to the strong forces of temptations.

Temptations for organizational leaders include (but are not limited to) maintaining the status quo, keeping the bureaucracy in place, and making sure that the can gets kicked far enough down the road that any consequences from that act of can kicking won’t sully their future reputation.

Bureaucracy is a temptation.

Maintaining the status quo is a temptation.

Practicing avoiding looking at trendlines is a temptation.

Focusing on the wrong changes at the wrong time (or the right changes at the wrong time) is a temptation.

The struggle for people who have not been designated “organizational leaders” is that there are all kinds of changes that need to be made, processes that need to be upgraded, and solutions that need to be advocated for within organizations.

But tragically, there appear to be no leaders interested in anything other than being tempted into continuing to be the politicians they maybe always were in the first place.

People not designated “organizational leaders” have been inculcated since at least grade school into the idea that being picked, being chosen to make a change, rather than independently choosing to imagine, take a risk on, and advocate for a new paradigm, is the only way that changes can happen.

But with the current level of systemic failure in organizations everywhere around us (from governments to small businesses), and with the dearth of leadership interest or experience evidenced in leaders who were picked, we don’t need more preservation of temptation.

We don’t need more political solutions to leadership temptations.

Instead, the people not designated “organizational leaders,” who are trapped in organizations (and trapped in systems at a higher level) should choose to put on the mantle of statesman—or stateswoman if you prefer.

A statesman chooses themselves (and their allies), raises their hand, says “I will take responsibility and accountability if an initiative fails, and will give away credit generously if it succeeds,” and is not tempted away from the course by bureaucracy, maintaining the status quo, avoidance of trends, or distractions.

A statesman calls the bluff—respectfully, firmly, but clearly—of the resistance.

This bluff calling—in all its varied forms—requires persistence, courage, self-awareness, a high tolerance for risk, and, of course, a strong dose of candor along with clarity of vision and purpose.

We need more people not designated “organizational leaders,” with the courage to choose themselves to be the statesman in their own sphere of influence.

We need fewer people designated as leaders (who behave like politicians) succumbing to temptations in our organizations and systems.

And we need them today.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 6 – Randy Shain

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 6 – Randy Shain, Author, 173 Pages Every College Student Must Read, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Mentor & Coach

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode #6 - Randy Shain

[powerpress]

Dear 2017 Graduates of High School and College-

Congratulations, you have come to the end of a long, traditional, mostly academic journey, whose steps and path were mainly decided for you by other people.

Now, upon graduation, you are in charge of your own decisions. And, where you may wind up at the end of the path known as your life.

I have been thinking a lot about your path, future conflict, and where you might wind up as adults.

I will not lie to you: Your seeming multiplicity of choices about when, how and why to start on your path really comes down to one deeply black and white choice. No matter what you have been told by professors, faculty members, or parents, the choice really comes down to answering unequivocally and thoroughly one black and white question:

Do you want to work or not?

Your work is not your job.

Your work is also not your passion.

I am not going to write here and tell you to “follow your passion.” That is often given, facile, advice provided to you by well-meaning, but misguided, people who operate organizations that may seek to hire you post-graduation. But more likely than not, they won’t.

But more likely than not, they won’t.

When you answer the much more interesting and pivotal question about whether or not to work in your own mind and heart, and to your own satisfaction, then you can make all of the other decisions that will cascade dividends throughout your entire life.

Let me paint you a picture:

I decided after the first ten years of being in the working world after college, that I wasn’t going to work a job—any job—another day in my life.

Think about that.

Now, make no mistake, I work at my business.

I work at my corporate training gigs.

I also work when I advise clients, take them through the sales process and get profit at the end.

I work when I write blog posts, do research, create videos and even do my audio podcast.

Like the one right here I did today with Randy Shain, author of 173 Pages Every College Student Must Read. But go get it after you read the rest of this.

In the traditional understanding of “labor,” both the Marxist and the Capitalist have it wrong: Labor is something that you can do for no money. And that labor—the labor that you decide needs no compensation—will assuredly be the labor that reflects your truest passions, desires, interests and goals.

And—trust me when I write this—money soon follows.

Your job (current or future) is not your work, college and high school graduates. Your job is merely a series of tasks that you accomplish in an organization in the pursuit of someone else’s passion.

This does not excuse you from performing in said job with excellence. As a matter of fact, it is your moral and ethical duty to perform any job task that you take on in the pursuit of working another’s passion, with excellence and moral verve.

At this point, you may be thinking, “This guy is crazy. First, he tells me that he’s not going to tell me to pursue my passion. Then he tells me something that sounds remarkably similar to that advice that I hear very often.”

Let me be even clearer: Many people, from James Altucher to Tim Ferriss talk a lot about “choosing yourself.” This is the idea that no one—not a boss, a parent, an authority figure in government or anybody else—can truly provide your life with security and meaning anymore. The rules, the safety net, and the promises of the Industrial Revolution are dead and gone. They represented a brief, flashpoint in world history and humanity is gradually and fundamentally, moving away from those promises, all the way from cradle to grave. What this means is you have to pick yourself and do the hard work of actually building yourself up. You have to research and employ the tools that are laying around everywhere for free on the Internet—but that you haven’t been fully integrated into for the last 22 or so years—to develop yourself and your truly meaningful work.

This is the work of your life that you have to choose to do. Or not

Yes, answering, truly answering, the question about whether or not you really want to work, means that you will have to commit to doing two—or more—things at once. You will have to delay gratification, show grit and persistence in the face of rejection, and preserve empathy and remain courageous, in the face of dismissal, passivity, and societal apathy.

School didn’t teach you how to deal with this.

Work—in the way that people traditionally think about it—won’t teach how to deal with this either.

The church and your volunteer civic life may have gotten close to teaching you these lessons.

These fine line distinctions that come from committing to one choice and doggedly sticking to it. But I can guarantee you that the rich, meaningful life for which you are searching, will become available to you if you answer this one question firmly, unequivocally and then act on it in the same fashion.

Oh, and by the way, don’t worry about all of those banks and student loan debt that you’ve piled up while dutifully learning and regurgitating the meaningless lessons of a dead, industrialized system. There are plenty of smart people out here who are tap dancing as fast as they can to undo the banking system, which is the second to the last edifice of the old Industrial system.

That is their passion.

Their true work.

If you really want to do something about your debt, go get a job working at one of these organizations.

They are growing, they are hungry and no one sees them coming.

So.

Do you want to work or not?

Connect with Randy in all the ways that you can below and click on the player above to listen to his thoughts on all of this:

Randy Shain on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randy.shain.7

Randy Shain on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randy-shain-68b03010/

One on One Mentors Website: http://www.oneononementors.com/about/

One on One Mentors Blog: https://www.facebook.com/oneononecollegementors

One on One Mentors on Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneononementors

 

An Academic Question

The question that academics should be asking (and answering) is this one: “What value do I add to a college students’ experience in a world where information is just a Google search away?”

The answer to this question requires academics to admit, out loud, that research may not be the best way to add value to a students’ experience in the wider world.

The answer to this question requires academics to admit, out loud, that the systemized expansion of the administrative class in colleges and universities may be a value subtraction rather than a value-add for students.

The answer to this question requires academics to adopt a posture that ensures that acquiring tenure is not about research that no one reads, publishing in a few august journals that can’t be accessed via Google, and then maybe teaching some classes.

The answer to this question requires academics to position themselves as true advocates of student learning, rather than giving lip service to the thought.

The answer to this question reduces class sizes, increases educational quality (higher education, that is…there are other questions to answer for K-12) and reduces the impact of the administrative class—and renders opaque the ‘black box’ of administrative decisions.

The answer to this question allows real, lifetime, impactful learning to occur inside of the institutions that we all know and love. Learning that becomes less about lecturing and information transfer (that’s what Google and Youtube are for) and becomes more about coaching, encouraging and watering minds.

There are a few academics who are asking—and answering—this question, but not nearly enough, not nearly loud enough, not nearly often enough, to bring the genuine change that students—both now and in the future—will need to meet the challenges of an ever more confusing 21st century.

Three Places to Thrash

When faced with a project there are three places to thrash:

Early—before the project begins.

Middle—as the project is proceeding.

Late—as the project ends.

When you (or your team) thrashes early, brainstorming becomes a way to develop new ideas. Speed and immediacy become the primary goals of early thrashing: Speed to actionable ideas and immediacy to the implementation of action, moving toward accomplishing end-of-project goals.

When you (or your team) thrashes in the middle of a project, brainstorming becomes a place to hide. Hiding emotionally, “getting to know your team,” or struggling to decide about the efficacy or practicality of an idea, become the unstated, primary goals. Speed becomes less important than looking good to peers, and groupthink really kicks in at this point, bogging down the implementation process.

When you (or your team) thrashes at the end of a project, brainstorming becomes a place of panic, anxiety, and on some teams (or with you) a place of abject fear. The combination of pressure to ship something out the door encourages a mindset and attitude focused around speed (but for negative reasons) and impatience with people and processes. The implementation process recedes in the face of the attitude of “just get it done.”

Thrashing—that is brainstorming a direction, deciding on an approach, planning a process, managing opinions and conflicts, and implementing a plan for action—should be done early, rather than late if you’re really interested (or your team is really interested) in shipping a product, idea, or service out the door and direct to the market.

If I Have A Dollar More Than You…

If I have a dollar more in my pocket than you do in your pocket at this moment, by all modern monetary conceptions of wealth, I’m richer than you.

If I have a dollar less in my pocket than you do in your pocket at his moment, by all modern monetary conceptions of wealth, I’m poorer than you.

If I add a dollar more of value to the economy through the writing of this blog post, and you gain more than a dollars’ worth of value from reading this post, then who is richer and who is poorer?

Value is hard to quantify (it always has been) but if the market doesn’t figure out a way for more people to add more value in ways that dovetail with their innate talents and skills (that may never have been valued before) then we’re all in a lot of trouble.

Seeking Validation

When someone asks you for validation about their approach to managing a conflict, what they are really asking for is reassurance that they are doing the right thing.

But since validation can only come from gatekeepers, and since gatekeepers have significantly less power in the world now than they ever have before, seeking validation is really an empty pursuit.

And since there is never enough reassurance that the right path has been taken, asking for validation—but really seeking reassurance—is a recipe for hiding from making the decisions that will move a conflict forward toward management and maybe resolution.

Instead of offering validation (or reassurance) offer opportunities and challenges to those who are hiding to have the courage to come out into the light, to make a decision, and to ship a solution that will be good enough for the conflict they are in.