In the previous two posts I have discussed commitment, objectivity, and courtesy and have talked about how we can work with people we do not, or perhaps do not believe we do or can, like. Let’s talk about attitude now.
Last week I started on the subject of ego and talked about the positive value of ego and how that could contribute positively to a group decision-making or problem-solving effort. This week I will turn to the Dark Side of ego (with apologies to George Lucas).
Starting with this entry, I will be describing Solution-Building much more directly. The last several posts have provided some of the background thinking that led to the formulation of a series of guidelines, or rules, for using Solution-Building as a framework for better decision-making and problem-solving.
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I apologize for being offline for the past two weeks. I have been dealing with the passing of my 103-year-old father. This involved making many decisions, both on my own and in consultation with my family and people we needed to work with outside the family. Some were easy and some difficult, but I did my best to follow the principles I am writing about in this blog. It helped keep me focused on the essentials and on easing the burden on others, as well as myself.
Now, back to Solution-Building, picking up where we left off.
The second Guideline follows, at least to a great extent, from the first. It, too, is a part of commitment.
Seems obvious, right? Doesn’t everyone come “ready and willing to participate?” Most of us have had experiences in which this is not true. Some people do not participate for a wide variety of reasons.
In this post, we will begin to address the third Guideline of Solution-Building, one based on the principle of courtesy:
This should be a no-brainer, right? Unfortunately, that is often not the way people act with and towards each other.
At the end of the last entry in this series, I said we would look at how we implement:
A short sidestep: a look at current issues in decision-making and how Solution-Building™ can play an important role
A short sidestep: a look at current issues in decision-making and how Solution-Building™ can play an important role, continued.
In my last post, I made the point that in times of chaos, uncertainty, and crisis, the need for careful, calm, rational, informed, and clear decisions becomes acute. If those responsible for making those decisions, as well as others who then must see that they are carried out, fail to do that, the result may well be disaster. For a business, that could mean anything from poor performance to bankruptcy. For a society, the result could be social upheaval, a change in government, or even something worse.
A short sidestep: a look at current issues in decision-making and how Solution-Building™ can play an important role, continued.
Let’s look at decisions made in the current Covid-19 pandemic and how Solution-Building could have been applied.