Small Thinking And Big Thinking

Problems fuel great leaders, providing opportunities to learn and grow to the next level. 

The greater the problem, the hungrier they are for a solution. Leaders like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates view problems as golden opportunities to disrupt the market and revolutionize the customer experience.

Great leaders acknowledge there is a problem and demonstrate the severity of the problem and the benefit of the solution to stakeholders, partners, and shareholders. 

This way, the leader not only takes responsibility for making the problem transparent, but he or she also explores different dimensions of the problem, consequently benefiting from others’ ideas.

• It helps to create effective brand messaging.  It determines how your brand is perceived and also builds trust with customers.
• Customer service relies on good communication. "60% of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand due to a poor customer service experience."  Microsoft’s 2016 Global State of Customer Service Report.
• It enables positive team relationships.  Effective communication helps to unite teams and create a safe environment to express themselves.

• It helps to prevent misunderstandings and conflicts. It can help to defuse a potentially explosive dispute while bad communication can set it off.

1. Using a One-Size-Fits-All Communication Approach. Tailor the communication style to the intended audience.
2. Speaking More and Listening Less. Listen to what is said, how it is said, and to what is not said.
3. Assuming Instead of Asking More Questions.
4. Using Negative Tone. Choose words carefully to eliminate negative reactions.

5. Avoiding Difficult Conversations.

6. Reacting, Not Responding.

7. Not Keeping an Open Mind. Accept and respect differences, listen without judgment and consider all sides of an issue.

Struggling with limited resources is a good formula for small companies, but is not easy to replicate in large corporations.

Innovation comes when companies are not focused on new ways to sell old successful products by re-marketing or repackaging them but to invent new products and compete in new industries.

Human beings as a species are not built for abundance and paradoxically achieve peak productivity with constraints and limited resources.

There is no 'circle of safety' in small companies, and survival is a very real concern. This makes the people pull themselves together and out-think their problems, succeeding by effort, not by financial resources.

• It brings team members' diverse experience into play. It increases the richness of ideas explored, which means that you can often find better solutions.
• It can help you get buy-in from team members for the solution chosen – after all, they're likely to be more committed to an approach if they were involved in developing it. 
• It helps team members bond, as they solve problems in a positive, rewarding environment.

• groups aren't always strict in following the rules of brainstorming, and bad behaviors creep in. 
• people pay so much attention to other people that they don't generate ideas of their own – or they forget these ideas while they wait for their turn to speak. 

On your own, you don't have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and you can be freer and more creative.

Creative ideas often come to you when you’re not deliberately trying to solve a problem, when your mind is relaxed.

That's why your creative process must include a system to capture ideas when you have them, so you can work on them later. The simplest mechanism is simply to have a list where you keep ideas.

Regularly review your ideas lists. Incubation helps because just as a spontaneous connection can generate an idea, an incubated idea can spontaneously mature into a plan of action if you take care of it.

• Positive vs. negative. Positive feedback confirms that someone is taking good action, while negative feedback shows what actions need to be corrected.
• Formal vs. informal. Formal feedback is given on a set schedule, and informal feedback is short and follows after an action or event.
• Annual vs. monthly
• Verbal vs. written
• Manager vs. peer

• Objective. Don't let your personal feelings get in the way.
• Timely. Feedback should follow when the event is still fresh.
• Constructive. Give respect and show that you have their best interests in mind.
• Actionable. Feedback must include immediate next steps.
• Warranted. Give your employees room for mistakes and learn from them.

• Performance transparency: it starts with making goals public and cascading those goals  in a way that is tailored to individuals at all levels of the organization.
• Knowledge sharing: critical to scaling best practices across (and up and down) organizations.
• Employee involvement: frontline employees are closest to the work and typically have the richest insights on how their work can be done better. Capturing their perspectives is critical.

We often start habits and drop them a few days later. To combat this, you can use triggers to remind you to practice the habit. Examples of triggers:

• Reading at the same time everyday will prime your brain to automatically trigger itself to begin reading.
• Leaving your books in places you will easily see is another trigger. If you read books digitally you could pin your tab so it’s always in your visual perspective.

Studies indicate that the Zeigarnik Effect is real. It says you are more likely to recall uncompleted tasks than completed ones.

Knowing this pattern of our brains, we can trick it by forcing cliffhangers when we’re reading books. It’s hard to stop reading in the most interesting part but it will make you want to start reading again.

"Someone asked me where I get all my good ideas, explaining that it takes him a month or two to come up with one and I seem to have more than that. I asked him how many bad ideas he has every month. He paused and said, 'None.'"

Create a safe place, free from criticism, because we tend to clam up if we feel like we're going to be criticized.

Rather than criticizing what you don't like, focus on getting ideas out in the open so you can build on them.