On Wednesday, May 1st, a podcast episode with me is coming out!
I joined my friend, Heather Miller, on her podcast, Balanceness. Heather is a very driven and accomplished person, and after a series of events, she:
“…felt like I was approaching a mid-life crisis, with no space to do so. As a result, I’ve been thinking about balance (and whether that’s actually a thing). Join me as I speak with some amazing thought leaders and women in my life to understand how they keep the fire going and the lights on while staying sane. We’ll explore drive, juggling priorities, taking no prisoners with your schedule, love and sickness, pursuing your dreams, enjoying the journey and figuring out what is right for you.”
She and I talk about my career, my principles for finding balance, personal experiments, and more!
Be sure to check it out when it launches on Wednesday! It’ll be published on YouTube here and on her podcast feed. The Spotify link for the show is here. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Let me know what you think!
Kevin
PS - If you’re in Austin on May 18th, come ruck with me. It’s a chance to disconnect from the Internet and get some exercise in. Join me!
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A Quote
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As virtually every leader I talked with said, there can be no growth without risks and no progress without mistakes. Indeed, if you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t trying hard enough. But as mistakes are necessary, so is a healthy organizational attitude toward them. First, risk taking must be encouraged. Second, mistakes must be seen as an integral part of the process, so that they are regarded as normal, not abnormal. Third, corrective action rather than censure must follow.
— Warren Bennis, "On Becoming a Leader"
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Three Things
1 - 💀 Immortality - Would you create an AI version of yourself to “live” on after you’re gone? What impact would it have on family and friends if they choose to create one on their own? Interesting question to think through, and one that Russ Roberts explores with Paul Bloom on the EconTalk podcast. Paul’s article on the topic is here.
2 - 🧠Martha Beck, Right Brain - Martha Beck seems to be most known for her writing on living a life of integrity, publishing “The Way of Integrity” in 2021. She didn’t lie for a full year, and learned a lot about herself in the process. In this podcast I was most interested in her talking about how anxiety can’t exist alongside creativity / curiosity, and how modern society is very left brain focused. As someone super left brained, I’m curious about what incorporating more right brain would look like.
Deeper Dive on Focusing on the Problem, Not the Person
Two things are prevalent in business; people and problems. Everywhere you look you’ll find both of them!
People cause, and also solve, problems.
Problems inform the skills you need and reflect the skills you have in people.
They’re intertwined, like yin and yang.
When an issue arises at work, you have a choice. You can focus on the person, or you can focus on the problem.
Focus on the Person - This looks like people on opposite sides of the table, as opposing forces. This looks like assessing whether they’re the right fit for the job. Depending on your culture, it might even look like blame - who caused this to happen? What’s wrong with this person?
Focus on the Problem - This looks like people on the same side of the table working together to solve a problem. This looks like rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. What wrong and how can we solve it, together?
The feeling of the conversation should be one of partnering. You’re working together as intellectual equals, both of you throwing in your thoughts.
While people are important, when an issue arises at work, I recommend focusing on the problem.
Why? I’ll cover five reasons and then share some techniques to help you do so.
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Why 1 - The problem has to be solved anyway!
Don’t leave your customers in the lurch by spending your precious time figuring out how your people caused the problem! The most important thing is to solve the problem first.
Get through whatever issue is blocking you, or your customers, so they can keep driving forward to success.
If you start with the people, you’ll still have to solve the problem later. But if you do it in that order, the time you’re focusing on the people is time that your customer is suffering. Get the problem solved, and if needed, think about the people later.
The staff are so busy finding blame, no one is helping the diner covered in soup!
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Why 2 - It avoids the easy path to drama
When there’s a problem it creates conflict, and in conflict people can easily get into drama roles; victim, rescuer, and persecutor. These roles are unhealthy for a lot of reasons, not least of which is inhibiting your team’s ability to solve problems together. And the bigger the problem, the more you’ll need to unlock the beautiful diversity of your team’s collective experiences, perspectives, and skills.
If you focus on the people first, there’s a greater risk of tripping over drama and slowing your ability to get the problem solved later.
If you focus on the problem, it’s easier to stay in “presence.”
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Why 3 - It mitigates the Fundamental Attribution Error
There’s a cognitive bias called the Fundamental Attribution Error. It’s an idea that we over-attribute the behaviors of others as being part of their innate personality, and under-attribute the behavior to something situational.
We do the inverse for ourselves; when something goes wrong it was due to the situation, not because of who we are.
When you focus on the problem, you’re looking at the situation - the thing we tend to under-attribute while affected by this cognitive bias. Focusing on the problem helps mitigate this cognitive bias by starting in the area that doesn’t get as much attention.
It can be easy to forget about a growth mindset, especially while under stress during a problem at work.
The reason you might want to focus on the person is that you think they don’t have the skills they need. But by focusing on the problem first, working through it together or providing other resources, you’re exposing the person to the skills they need anyway.
People want to be successful and will pick up on the lessons learned and skills they need as everyone focuses on solving the problem.
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Why 5 - It encourages psychological safety
Psychological safety is a deep topic, but the idea is that you can’t unlock all that people have to offer unless they have high psychological safety. There’s a principle in the concept of psychological safety where you want to increase intellectual friction and decrease social friction.
By focusing on the problem, you’re engaging the intellectual challenge and increasing friction - encouraging psychological safety. If you focus on the people, you’re increasing social friction - discouraging psychological safety.
Now that we’ve established five connected ideas on why it’s important to focus on the problem, not the person - what are some techniques we can employ to do this well?
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Techniques to help focus on the problem
Make Space - Create an environment, especially in 1-1s, where it’s okay to bring up problems. Depending on the size of your org. and the culture you have, it can be difficult to hear about problems happening in your business. The way you act in a 1-1 is a huge factor in whether these problems get surfaced to be solved - or hidden away to silently effect your customers.
Your behavior has everything to do with whether or not information reaches you without distortion. If you shoot the messenger, word gets around and the information channels shut down. Focus on the business problem at hand, and try to work with the person to identify and overcome problems in converting ideas into action. If solutions don’t emerge, make a plan to generate some.
Root Cause Analysis - Focus on the problem, and be sure to check for the problem that caused that problem. Go deeper in your analysis. The Five Whys is a common technique, as is the Fishbone Diagram. The method doesn’t matter as much as the mindset. Recognize that the problem you see is on the surface, and check if there’s anything deeper.
Ask Open Questions - An open question is one that allows the other party to elaborate (as opposed to closed questions, which are more yes/no). When you’re focusing on a problem you’ll want to allow for context to come through. In a closed question you’re often chasing your hypotheses versus gathering divergent context.
Listen Actively - When engaging in a discussion, practice active listening techniques; listen with full attention, ask clarifying questions, and reflect back what you’ve heard. When you know you’re going to have to summarize back to the other person you’re more likely to really listen to what they have to say. This encourages trust and helps get all the problem-related details out in the open.
Bringing it all together
When an issue arises at work, you have a choice. You can focus on the person, or you can focus on the problem. I recommend focusing on the problem.
Why?
- The problem has to be solved anyway! - It avoids the easy path to drama - It mitigates the Fundamental Attribution Error - It honors the growth mindset - It encourages psychological safety
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Some techniques to help you do this well are:
- Make space - Perform root cause analysis - Ask open questions - Listen Actively
You’re doing this so you can solve problems faster; velocity matters in business! Get on the same side of the table (metaphorically) with your team and bring all your intellectual horsepower to the problem at hand.
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Call to Action
When a problem comes up this week, notice which direction you go to first. Do you want to focus on the person, or do you want to focus on the problem? Orient yourself to focusing on the problem.
How does it feel to increase intellectual friction and decrease social friction? What do you notice about how your team feels when you focus on the problem?
Enjoy! I love hearing how this goes for you. If you encounter a problem this week, tell me about it at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
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