One Key to Breakthrough Solutions

I know from personal experience—it is a shocking and potentially life-changing experience when a woman discovers a change in the shape of her breast. When it happened to me three weeks ago, I promptly saw my doctor. With expert concern, she declared, “This is not normal,” and personally made the appointment for an ultrasound the next day.

My Journey of Discovery
The next day, the radiologist declared, “This is a big red flag.” I asked, “Is it ever not cancer?” She didn’t directly answer. Although finding no positive results, she advised a surgical consult and breast MRI. Gratefully, it required 3 weeks to schedule an MRI.

When pushed out of the momentum of events, I stopped to read reputable online sources about the test. I discovered little evidence it added significant value and higher than usual risk of false positive results in my situation. I started questioning, “Am I taking a path that will cost time, worry and painful, unneeded surgery?”

Please be clear, the point of this story is NOT to criticize or discourage anyone from using doctors and traditional medicine. Both have been invaluable in my life and may well have saved my life, but it turned out not to be so this time.

The point of my story is very different: Because my skilled, concerned doctors searched for what they expected to find in ways they knew to search for it…just as many of us do as leaders…they moved in an unproductive direction…just as we can do easily as well.

End of Story?
I broadened my lens and explored options. To my surprise and pleasure, my chiropractor accurately addressed what was obvious to him (as he searched from a different perspective.) He found the easy-to-correct source of my condition, a twisted ribcage from yoga practice. He re-aligned my ribs and, with that, everything is returning to normal.

I would have partnered with the doctors gratefully if the issue had persisted. I share this journey because it turned into a powerful teaching story instead of a health crisis.

The Leadership Lessons
My experience highlighted valuable life and leadership reminders:

• We ALL face urgent and perplexing situations, more now than ever before.
• We ALL search for understanding and solutions in familiar ways and places that limit our effectiveness in ways we don’t recognize.
• We ALL have opportunities to build new, richer understanding and more effective, even breakthrough solutions for our toughest challenges if we will open our lenses and search beyond where we expect to find answers.

The old Sufi teaching story about the wise fool, Mullah Nazrudin and the lost key, offers a similar lesson about finding spiritual enlightenment and goes something like this:

One night, a man found Nazrudin pacing the ground under a streetlamp. The man asked what he was doing and Nazrudin replied, “Searching for my lost key.” In an effort to help, the man asked, “Where did you lose it?” and Nazrudin pointed to a very dark area down the road and said, “Over there.”

Perplexed, the man asked, “Why are you looking here?!” Nazrudin replied, “Because this is where the light is best.”

Business Impact
Stakeholders want leaders to have “right” answers quickly. Leaders easily default to using convenient and familiar places, people and processes to gather information and create those answers. Under pressure, we draw conclusions in a quarter of a second.

But, increasingly novel, complex and dynamic challenges demand breakthrough solutions just as we face a variety of factors we can’t understand clearly or quickly. Cross cultural, environmental, geo-political, regulatory, economic, generational concerns and customer loyalty issues are messy. Our success with messy situations increasingly calls us to explore possibilities that aren’t obvious and learn from unfamiliar sources … just as we find it the most uncomfortable to slow down and use them.

Breakthrough solutions can happen when you seek new and diverse sources of information. Invite others to challenge and enrich your perspectives so you can see with fresh, more effective eyes and hearts. Ask, “How can I learn about and incorporate others’ (particularly minority) views before I make matters worse instead of better?”

Next Steps
As a leader or leader mentoring others with baffling challenges, you may value guidance and support for discovering and effectively using new ways of creating breakthrough solutions. I’d love to explore options with you. Our first conversation is always free. Find me at mkimbell@corporateadventure.com.

Feel free to share these ideas with others and invite them to join our community at www.corporateadventure.com. I welcome your additional examples and comments below.

All the best,

Meredith Kimbell
President,Corporate Adventure
Executive Advisor, Strategy Consultant, Leadership Energizer

Leadership Coaching Notes uses real or composite client examples drawn from 30 years of coaching and consulting with leaders committed to improve performance by solving their toughest personal, interpersonal and organizational issues.
Unless otherwise attributed, all material is copyrighted by Meredith Kimbell © 2012. All rights reserved. You may reprint any or all of this material if you include the following: “Leadership Coaching Notes” © 2012 Meredith Kimbell, Corporate Adventure, Reston, VA. Used with permission.”