Fresh Eyes

Problem-solving perspectives

Have a problem to solve? Or one you're trying to avoid?

How you approach a problem has a lot to do with how the problem-solving goes.

Here are perspectives from others on problem-solving...or not:

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Winston Churchill

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
Henry Ford

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson

When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

For a moment, a mirror

For a moment, a mirror, originally uploaded by jcgr.

A problem - a puddle - becomes a source of beauty - a mirror reflecting the beautiful blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and stark winter trees above.

Customer feedback is a good thing (really)

How is your customer support staff viewed in your company?

As the clean-up crew?

Hopefully not.

They are, in fact, stewards of gold.

The information they have from customers - if you choose to use it in this way - can provide you invaluable information about current products and services and how they really work (or not).

The information they can collect - if you seek it - can also provide great ideas for future products and sources of revenue.

Here's how others see customers' perspective and the information they can provide:

In the end, the customer doesn't know, or care, if you are small or large as an organization...she or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.
Giorgio Armani

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.
Michael Dell

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates

I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.
Steve Jobs

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
Zig Ziglar

Breaking through

Pastels and silhouettes, originally uploaded by jcgr.

We're working our way through a heavy weather week in California.

Here a few pastel clouds I saw on a brief walk break up an otherwise a gray day.

A quick walk...at least for me...brings fresh energy and fresh ideas, every single time I take a walk.

What types of quick breaks most predictably bring lightness and fresh ideas and energy to you?

Are you fully committed to change?

A question must be asked in these days of a still-new year, when resolutions may be quietly slipping away.

The question is: how badly do you want it, this change you've entertained?

A. "Sure I want it, if it's easy!"

B. "I want this change so much I'm ready to put this as a top priority. I know it means I'll be spending my time, energy, attention and perhaps money, too, in different ways."

Once you make full commitment to significant change, many actions flow seemingly quite easily from that one solid decision.

Here's how others see change and making the commitment to it:

It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.
Lucille Ball

If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.
Dolly Parton

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
William James

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Beauty in transition

Natural sculpture...here now, soon gone, originally uploaded by jcgr.

A natural if temporary sculpture is created by a tulip petal.

Fresh and vibrant in early bloom, here it morphs into sworls and curls, completing its full cycle in beautiful ways.

Is 2010 off to a good start? If not, here are a few things you can do

We're two weeks in, with 50 to go.

How's your progress on your 2010 resolutions?

Are you making step-by-step progress toward the habits that you need to have in order to meet your current goals?

If old perspectives, habits or discouraging self-talk threaten to take you back to the ways that didn't work before, do something dramatic.

Shake yourself up.

Shake the January doldrums off.

Do one of the following...or something else...but do it now:

- Create a mural of your goal and the path to it.

Include enough details to show you on making steady progress toward the finish line, the top of the mountain, or whatever metaphor works to propel you through the changes you need to make to reach your goal.

- Choose an encouraging target phrase and say it to yourself 50 times each day.

Sounds silly?

Think of it this way. You're probably saying discouraging things to yourself at least that frequently, whether you realize it or not.

Substitute a new and better script. Stop or drown out the depleting things you're telling yourself now.

- Choose an energy-building song you love and play it three times a day.

Try playing it once in the morning, again as a break during the day, and a third time on your way home or in the evening sometime.

- Create a chart and track actions that will take you all the way across the finish line.

If you're trying to give up soda, for example, use a simple checksheet to keep track of the number of days you successfully say "no" to yourself and to the siren call of the item or habit that "wants you to return," even though you're trying to let go.

- Make a public declaration of your goal, and the daily actions you're taking to try to reach it.

Share it with people who support you. Enlist their help in keeping you on track.

And what about those who are threatened by your growth, or your dreams?

Like it or not, there are some people whose security is threatened by your plans to improve, or to do something better for yourself.

Stand up for yourself.

You have to be in your own corner before anyone else will.

Do what you need to do to be true to you, and to create a better today and many better tomorrows.

Make your mark, naturally

Natural stripes, originally uploaded by jcgr.

Late afternoon shadows make their mark in a strong, unmistakable way.

How can you make your mark in a clear, natural, positive way today?

The dance of departure continues

The dance of departure occurs many times in life.

It happens in business, when colleagues leave and move on to other companies, or, unfortunately, when layoffs occur.

It happens in families and with friends.

Someone starts college, or takes a new job, or gets married and moves far away. And, of course, families and groups of friends change in other big ways, too.

So the dance of departure happens again and again, in different ways.

That dance is underway in our world now.

Our son's final college applications went in last night.

After they'd been sent, I felt a great big mixture of relief, pride, and yet, was reminded of my wish not to be at this point in life so soon.

Yet here we are. It is...believe it or not, whether we as parents like it or not...time.

And so, the dance of departure continues.

We want our children to be ready to run on their own when the time is right.

Day by day, over the full range of their growing up years, we let them gradually go.

We teach them to.

We help them develop skills, learn to make good decisions, celebrate successes and also face consequences when choices don't work out well.

All this time, they thought all that we cared about was good grades?

Little do they know how carefully we've watched and tried to make good decisions, ourselves.

We hope to have done a good job of guiding both the strategic and tactical aspects of their growth, their readiness to join the adult world.

As parents, we want to make sure that they get the right foundation: a solid base of knowledge that will serve them well, strong life skills, and the ability to apply them well. And, of course, we hope to have taught them resiliency, as well.

We hope they surround themselves with people who are friends in the truest sense of the word, and support their growth, too.

We hope to help them learn to hit that difficult-to-achieve balance between being themselves and yet knowing how to be a strong member of the groups they're in.

We teach them to plan, to try their plan, and to adapt as need be to reach challenging goals. And we try to teach them to know that's it's okay to for help as they learn and grow.

We try to teach them how to leave well - even though we don't want to see them go.

We get them (and ourselves) ready to say "good-bye." 

And ready to say "hello" in a different way as the adults they become, proudly testing themselves in a soon-larger world.

This dance of departure is not an easy dance, whatever departure is involved.

But it's an important one to do well.

Fresh start, new year

Clouds, originally uploaded by Camera Is On.

A new year, a new decade dawns.

It's full of promise and potential.

And, if we let them, positive new habits can form, step by step, day by day.

Attention to even a few simple changes, fresh perspectives and repeated actions on the path to our goals can lead us to bigger, brighter, better results.

A fresh year unfolds.