Fault vs. Responsibliity

Will Smith posted a video on Facebook the other day - regarding the difference between fault and responsibility.

I really liked it because it echos what I tell people. It doesn't matter whose fault something is.  Figuring out who is to blame is a proxy problem, meaning it's a problem we think we need to solve to solve our problems. It isn't and Will Smith does a good job of explaining why.

Figuring out who is to blame doesn't fix our problems. It is rare that the person who caused a problem will solve it. So don't want for them to fix their crap.

You - take responsibility for what you are going to do given the reality you now have. Yes, that reality might suck. Ok - what are you going to do about it? Whine and hope someone else fixes it?  If so - you may be waiting a really long time.

Take responsibility to fix the problems in your life. Don't wait and hope that someone else will do it for you.

Want to learn how to be more responsible and to cope better with what life throws at you? Considering taking my life skills course - Living Made Simpler - a Humanist Approach.

https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/ 

Critical Thinking in Decision Making

Do you know the elements of good decision making?

Good leaders make good decisions. If a leader is charismatic and can get people to do what they want, that’s good. Getting them to do what is needed to get good results? That’s great!

It isn’t enough to know how to motivate people if what you are motivating them to do is counterproductive and stupid. All you will have done is wasted people’s time, energy and money fixing a problem that either doesn’t exist or not fixing a problem that does.  As my father always said, that’s not too B R I T E!

A good leader makes sure that what they are asking people to do will yield the desired results and not waste anyone’s time with pointless busywork.

Here are the elements of good decision making.

1) Understanding the problem that needs to be solved. The amount of time wasted on what I like to call proxy problems is astonishing. I’ve seen leaders just spin everyone’s wheels on problems that aren’t really problems. In order to make sure you don’t waste time solving problems that aren’t really important or critical to your success, you HAVE to think critically and ask the question – WHY AM I WORKING ON THIS?

2) Knowing what will actually work to solve your actual problem. Assuming you know the problem you want to solve AND that the problem is a real problem that’s actually worth solving, you now need a solution that will actually work to solve it. Again ... critical thinking will help here. Consider all your options and use critical thinking to evaluate those options to choose the one that is most likely to help you succeed. Fail to do this step, usually means failure.

3) Plan for problems. Knowing what is going to cause you problems before you start a project is a good way to not fail.  Hoping for the best isn’t a strategy. Considering what all could go wrong and having a plan for how to avoid or deal with those things happening is a strategy. All this step takes is a little bit of time thinking! I know it’s hard, do it anyway.

4) Be open to being wrong. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we make mistakes. We analyze. We consider, we plan and then, things still don’t work out because there was something we didn’t know we needed to know before we started. When this happens to a good leader, they regroup, reconsider and adjust their plans accordingly. Usually all that’s required is a slight tweak. Don’t force your team to trudge on when it’s obvious what you are doing isn’t working. Nothing kills respect for a manager like sending a team on a pointless death march.

If these 4 critical thinking skills are new to you, consider taking my personal development program – Planning for Personal Success. While the course is for personal development, it does cover how to make good decisions so you give yourself the best change at success.

The benefits of critical thinking.

5 Reasons to make the effort to think critically.

1) Better decisions. Basing your decisions on facts yields better outcomes. To make sure what you think you know is actually so requires a little critical thinking.

2) Better strategies. In order to have an effective strategy you have to know what all your options are and you have to weigh the pros and cons of all of them to choose the one that will give you the best chance of success. Again, this requires thinking

3) You won’t waste your time on proxy problems. A lot of people fail because they try to solve the problem they think needs to be solved when what they are really working on is a proxy problem that is standing in for their real problem. And because they never bother to question the assumptions they made about which problem needs to be solved, they never realize that they are working on the wrong problem. Critical thinking, questioning why you are solving this particular problem will help you avoid wasting time and energy on proxy problems.

4) Better relationships. We all make assumptions. But if you never bother to find out if your assumptions are true, you may be making a mistake. This is especially true when your assumptions are about other people. Taking the time to recognize that other people don’t think like you and aren’t necessarily motivated the same way you are allows you to figure out what really is motivating them. Again, the challenging of your assumptions IS the art of critical thinking.

5) You won’t get taken in by charlatans. Charlatans and scam artists make their money from people who don’t bother to check their claims to make sure what they are saying is true. Don’t be duped. Learn how to question and challenge claims being made.

Proxy Problems

How much time do you spend on proxy problems?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about proxy problems. These are the problems we spend our time solving that don’t really fix anything, because they aren’t really our real problem. They are our proxy problems that we try to solve because we think they will solve our real problem.

For instance, if you have a field that needs water, the easiest way to get water on it is for it to rain. If it doesn’t rain you have a problem because you need to now find a new way to get water on your field. A lot of people respond to this sort of problem by trying to fix the old way of solving their problem. If it isn’t raining, what can they do to make it rain. Trying to make it rain is a proxy problem precisely because the real problem is that you need water on your field.

The problem with proxy problems is that they take away time, energy and resources that could have been spent on actually solving your problems and focus those resources on solving the proxy problem and that normally doesn’t turn out too well because, well, you can’t make it rain. You can, however, find other ways to get water on your field.

Effective problem solving is all about figuring out what your real problem is so that you don’t spend time trying to solve your proxy problems. Everyone falls prey to proxy problems so don’t think that just because you are smart and read my blog that you are immune. We all waste time on proxy problems.

This is why Humanists are so fond of Freethought. It isn’t that we use it to reject religion. It’s that we use it to challenge our own assumptions about what our real problems are so that we don’t waste time on proxy problems.

The biggest skill required for Freethought is humility. Humility to admit you were wrong so that when you do figure out you’ve been focused on a proxy problem, you stop working on it and focus on the real problem you are trying to fix instead. A good example of this is Martin Pribble recent rant – I Quit. http://martinspribble.com/2013/12/a-rant-i-quit/

Time to fess up, what proxy problem have you wasted an amazing amount of time on before realizing it was a proxy problem?