Tag: Problem solving

Leadership

First Principles Based Leadership – Building our Systemic Awareness

Premise In this series of posts about First Principles Based Leadership, we have already covered the importance of and how to improve our self awareness, social awareness, cultural awareness and contextual awareness. In this post, we will explore the importance of systemic awareness and how can we continue to improve our ability to understand and be more aware of the systems within which we operate in. We live in a world where everything is inter connected. There is a system at every level of abstraction and these systems create the limits to our efficiency. Systems awareness refers to the ability to understand and identify the […]

Leadership

What differentiates Average Leaders from Good Leaders?

One of the characteristics that differentiates good leaders from average leaders is their ability to develop a T shaped characteristics. So, what does being T shaped mean? There are three characteristics when it comes to being a T shaped leader – Linking, Thinking and Doing. Linking Linking is all about the ability to link disparate things together to come up with novel ideas. This is the ability of mix and match both common things but even more importantly things that are not necessarily seen as matching. This is also the ability to cross-pollinate ideas, people and thought processes. This is […]

Leadership

Of Clouds and Clocks

Sir. Karl Popper, in one of his lectures, elaborates about the presence of two types of systems – the clocks and the clouds. Clocks: At one end of the spectrum are Clocks. Clocks are those systems that can be taken apart to understand how they function and assembled back together and when done right, will continue to function the way they were designed. They are predictable. They can be simple or complex but with enough time and skill, we can understand each and every part of the system, their role in the system and how they interact with the other […]

Leadership

Don’t Come to Me with a Problem

I have heard many leaders use some variation of this quote with their sub-ordinates. In the video below, coach Marshall Goldsmith and Sam Shriver share why this is probably the worst thing that a leader can do to their sub-ordinates and their companies. Please take the time to watch the video before we continue our conversation. This video is part of a series of conversation that both these gentlemen have and I think it is worth your time to listen to the entire series. But for now, lets focus our attention on this particular topic at hand. When you dig […]

Ideas

First Step in Solving any Problem – A lesson delivered by Mulla Nasruddin

  Let me tell you one of the many inimitable stories of Mulla Nasruddin.. A man had fallen between the rails in an underground station and people were crowding around, all trying to get him to safety before the train came and crushed him. They were shouting “Give me your hand! Give me your hand!” But the man would not reach up. It so happened that Mulla Nasruddin was around there as well, watching from among the crowd. Seeing this, he elbowed his way to through the crowd and leant over to the man. “Friend,” he said, “what is your […]