Strap in - 2019 is about the art of the possible
In 2018 I helped some brilliant people develop and implement breakthrough solutions to strategic or operational issues constraining their organisations. I've worked with people wrestling with genuinely disruptive technologies [www.resonate.tech] and with others wrestling society-disabling issues including homelessness, ACEs and occupational safety and health [including Public Health England, Cymru Well Wales, NHS England, Auriga, and with my NED hat on, IOSH ].
Transformational change, my arena of choice, is all about choice. Last year was so successful because we made good choices.
So what's a good choice? My mentor and author Dr Ted Hutchin offers this working definition [The Right Choice: Using Theory of Constraints for Effective Leadership. Page 8]:
"For me a good choice is one that at least meets some of the following
Moves me closer to my goal in life
Moves my team toward the team goal
Moves my organisation towards the global goal
Does not negate any necessary conditions for all of the above
Transforms all my relationships to win-win
Has no significant consequences that I can't deal with"
I adopted this definition 5 years ago and it breathes through every piece of work I take on. In 2018 it's enabled me to empower others to make good choices about what to change; good choices about what to change to; and good choices regarding how to cause change to happen at pace, without causing new, unmanageable issues.
In what I believe is going to be a hugely significant breakthrough for one client organisation, we're culturally hardwiring a version of this to improve problem solving, decision making, shift leadership to the front line, drive destruction of silos and most importantly of all, to empower creativity.
So why the "And" icon?
It is about what good choices aren't. Good choices are not about compromise. Awareness of the 'And' is a powerful trigger. When I hear people say a version of "I must do x because of y, but I also need to do the opposite of x [w] because of z and I can't choose between options because both cause me pain so I'm trying to find a compromise to get a little bit of both but that causes me pain too" my alarm bells go off because what they really want is BOTH. They want x AND w. They just don't know how to draw the problem in such a way that they can develop a solution which gets them what they want without causing new, unmanageable pain [i.e. a solution which ticks all Ted's boxes].
I do know how to do this. It's one of the reasons my clients develop breakthrough solutions and it's one of the reasons to strap in, because 2019 is going to be another great year.