Option Solving Blog

A consultant friend was recently talking to me about some of his challenges with a major client. He had recently completed a retreat and was due to get back to his client to discuss the outcome. Some of the complexities of the client’s team and recent events didn’t make the retreat easy, and my friend was in somewhat of a quandary as to how to play his forthcoming client phone conversation. It was only natural for me to offer an option solving session, to help this friend figure out the best way forward.

We immediately started focusing on an appropriate question, with the outcome being: “What is my best immediate option for providing additional value to my special client, considering…” The reason we went in this direction was because his client’s budgetary situation was tight and so it would mean offering additional highly prized value to keep the outcome relationship ongoing.

So we then moved on to the considerations, such as: “Politics of funding, its need to overcome a poor audit, its team is somewhat burnt out, and high team turnover.” These were the most important four of the several we flushed out.

Now we moved on to creating the two bookends, the extremes that would get my friends intuitive juices working. The two that jumped to the fore were: “Run away from the client” and at the other end, “Request full-time retainer for x days/month.” Neither of these were viable, but were still options.

With these in place, my friend was now primed to develop a range of options from which he could choose the best course of action. He came up with six and you can see three of them in the attached Latest Example. However, before he made a choice, we turned the options picture over and strayed off onto other topics for about 10 minutes, just to help him develop some emotional distancing.

Once he returned to the picture, which, unbeknown to him, was percolating in his intuitive mind, while we were discussing other things, he just quickly perused the question with considerations and then surveyed his options. His intuitive instincts guided him to his best option and that moment in time.

He was quite relaxed and comfortable about the outcome. That’s what option solving does for you. It brings instant clarity of perspective with its natural relief. We then moved on to his immediate steps going forward, while things were still in focus. I understand all went well with his subsequent client meeting.

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of this dilemma and its potential solution. If you have any example of your own, please share it with the blogger through the COMMENTS icon.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Retiring from my practice?’” We will appreciate your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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