Having Sufficient Technical Resources Available: by using Option Solving…continued.

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Last blog we were dealing with a project manager’s challenge to have enough technical resources in her pocket to deal with the many software projects coming her way, although her company couldn’t afford to have people waiting around for new projects to emerge: see further details on the last blog below this piece.

Once her question was complete, she was able to take the next option solving step, namely, deriving “bookends.” Bookends are those extreme options, the ying and yang extreme possibilities that would help frame a cluster of likely options. The pair she chose was: “Not wait for technical resources to appear” and “Disregard deadlines.” Why don’t we finish her story in the next blog, see below.

With these in place, her bookends, along with her comprehensive question, quickly nudged her to come up with at least five different options (experience has shown that a minimum of 5-6 options will help ensure that sufficient creativity will occur). Three of her five were: “Outsource possibilities,” “Always have a team in reserve,” and “Have on call a part-time team of people available.”

With the five she picked, she participated in some emotional distancing to take her focus away from these options for 5-10 minutes. We talked about some other interesting things going on in her life at that moment in time, quite unrelated to her dilemma. Ten minutes later we returned to her option picture and, following a quick reread of her question and bookends, to intuitively pick the option that would work best for her company. We’ll leave you to guess what that might have been.

In any event, I heard back 3-4 weeks later that she had pursued her option with the company’s leadership and they were quite willing to help her bring it to fruition. There is no doubt her case was helped by thinking through her options in this coherent way, rather than potentially using a complaining or non-constructive approach.

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of this dilemma and its potential solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks : “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘President Obama’s options to deal with Osama bin Laden?’” We will appreciate your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Having Sufficient Technical Resources Available: Using Option Solving

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Not so long ago I found myself talking with a client project leader for a fast growing medical devices company. The market is developing rapidly for hospital handheld devices, where vital patient bedside information can be rapidly transmitted to the responsible physician or nurse.

Insufficient technical staff to meet the demand was providing a certain amount of stress for this project leader. She had to pull new teams together quickly once new projects came in, although her company was not in a position to hire people in advance without projects actually having arrived in-house. Additionally, based upon local demographics, she was challenged to assimilate technical people because of their diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

At some point we got around to figuring out the most effective question to get the option solving ball rolling and thereby resolve her dilemma. After some discussion, her question started to emerge as: “What is our best immediate option for obtaining sufficient technical people for completing projects, considering…”

To increase the effectiveness of the question, it is important to include her key considerations to provoke her intuitive capabilities into higher gear. She ultimately came up with 5 or 6, although particularly focused on 3: “…considering cultural differences within staff, tremendous time pressures, and time to complete multiple projects at once.”

Now that the question was complete, she could take the next option solving step, namely, deriving “bookends.” Bookends are those extreme options, the ying and yang extreme possibilities that would help frame a cluster of likely options. The pair she chose were: “Not wait for technical resources to appear” and “Disregard deadlines.” Why don’t we finish her story in the next blog, see below.

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

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Filling Vacant Storage Space: by using Option Solving!

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Just imagine you are a manager of a storage facility and your success depends on filling all available space at worthwhile margins. Here you are with a fair amount of space available, but economic conditions are not helping you: especially as you focus on storing rather valuable items. Additionally, other players are pushing their way into the market so there is extra market squeeze. Your CEO is not enthralled at the space standing vacant.

Fortunately, as the storage manager you find yourself introduced to option solving. So now you are encouraged to think about the rational minded question which will fire your creative, intuitive capabilities into action. All being well, from this starting point, you will find a valuable option to solve your perplexing storage dilemma.

Your question starts out: “What is my best option for filling the vacant XYZ location storage space…” But then you have to start thinking about some of the special considerations that you and your team have to think about, which will either help or hinder the situation, such as: “No direct influence over sales,” “Current difficult economic environment,” “In-house competition from other facilities,” “Marketing budgets are tight,” and “Growing external competition.”

Once these are appended to your earlier question, you are prompted to devise “bookends:” yin and yang options that are too extreme to realistically consider. You are nudged to do this because they will prompt your intuitive senses into even higher imaginative gear. Put on the spot, you come up with: “Not to worry about it” at one end, and “Stand on the nearest corner with a sandwich board!” at the other.

Sparked by these and your comprehensive question, your intuitive mind begins to fire off more realistic alternatives including: “Collaborate more closely with Bill our salesperson,” “Ask clients for referrals, when they are happy with our services,” and “Keep wooing my fellow storage managers, relative to the way I make referrals to them.” You come up with at least two other alternatives.

Since you are not totally pressed for time, you have the opportunity to sleep on it overnight as a good form of emotional distancing. Your intuitive mind mulls over the question, considerations, bookends and your range of options during the night. It makes the many trade-offs, searches for comparable experiences, and synergizes many factors. By the morning out pops your best option. As soon as possible thereafter, you put your initial game plan in place and move forward: comforted that you’ve considered all the worthwhile possibilities and have chosen the best one. Within a month your space is filled.

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

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Stimulating an Executive into Action: by means of Option Solving!

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Faced with the recent challenge of stimulating a client executive into action, after a couple of month lull, option solving appeared to be my best “option” for figuring out how to handle the situation. Often there are subtle complexities to such scenarios, where a little misstep can set you back some, even when there’s a good deal of residual good will. Also, executives too often have their hands full from many quarters, so moving your topic up their priority listing is always a significant challenge.

After pulling out a blank sheet of paper, I set to work with option solving. Expressing the first part of the question came relatively easy: “What is my best option for stimulating Jack into action, considering…” But then I had to figure out the key considerations in this situation, which needed a certain amount of additional thought. These eventually turned out to be: “…potential company financial pressures, he’s under considerable time constraints, and he may believe his group’s prior turmoil was now stabilizing.”

By way of background to these considerations: his company had enjoyed robust results (even during the Great Recession) owing to smart positioning, but the company’s profitable status was now deteriorating. Since my client is central to most fiscal matters, changes and adjustments are his key priority. A few months back his group experienced a fair amount of turmoil as a former key player left.

My question and considerations formulated, it was now time to produce “bookends” or more extreme options to frame my current dilemma. These would help stimulate the creative side of my intuitive intelligence to produce in-between options. Two which fairly readily came to mind were: at one end, “Say hello (by phone), listen and offer to talk more another time,” at the other end “Give him an all encompassing proposal.” As the Ying and Yang extreme options, they started my sub-conscious intuitive computer searching its data bank for realistic alternative possibilities.

The search brought up five options of which I will share three. Again, if I reveal all of them, you wouldn’t be able avoid trying to second-guess me. That would be unfair of you because you weren’t in my exact circumstances at the time and it would take too much time to explain all the nuances involved in my final choices.

Anyway, one option was, “Seek a lunch meeting to discuss his options.” Another was, “Focus on a conversation topic; set up another call to discuss more fully.” And yet another was, “Refer to pre-holiday turmoil and how to mitigate this with the sales group.” Once I had fleshed all five out, I then set my sheet aside for ten minutes for some emotional distancing.

Emotional distancing allows time for your intuition to mull over your options (in my particular case, five) and make the sub-conscious trade-offs necessary for making your final optimum choice. After about ten minutes, where I focused on something quite unrelated, my mind was relaxed enough to make a good choice. (NOTE: Our intuition doesn’t work at its best when under pressure.)

Ultimately, I opted for one of the five and obviously pursued it a couple of days later with my client. By feeling that I had made the best choice, I approached the phone meeting with a quiet confidence that it would go favorably. It did.

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of another recent potential solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Filling some vacant storage space?’” We will appreciate your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Best option for dealing with a Company Hornet’s Nest: by means of Option Solving!

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

A short while ago I was discussing with a company executive about his new assignment. It sounded as though he was inheriting a real hornet’s nest because trust had broken down over several months on both sides: the executives had lost confidence in the particular business unit and vice-versa was true with the people in the unit. To make things even more interesting, was the fact that this executive was going to use his assignment to rehabilitate his own leadership reputation in the eyes of his senior executives.

The first obvious question was to look at his options. He was looking at a pretty limited range at that time. So we started to frame an appropriate question to start some out-of-the-box-thinking to flow. After some discussion, his question started out as, “What is my best option to build a positive critical mass within the next 3-6 months, considering…” Critical mass was important, since the unit was still not able to stand on its own two feet.

After some further conversation, he came up with considerations such as, “… current unhelpful poor relations, inadequate facilities, senior executive performance expectations, and the need for better team focus?” These were then tacked onto the end of the earlier question. Of course, every situation has its own considerations, so I wouldn’t encourage you to follow his carte blanche: you’ll have your own.

Once these were packaged together, his next step was to come up with a couple of “bookends” or the ‘Ying and Yang’ option extremes that he was least likely to pursue. Getting these out would help stimulate his creative intuition to come up with reasonable alternatives. He ended up with: “Go and take over: kick butt” at one end and “Go and sell (for the unit): let the chips fall where they may.” Neither were especially viable in the circumstances, but they were still options.

With the question, considerations and “bookends” in place, he was now ready to look at his reasonable options, some of which turned out to include: “Arbitrate between XYZ location team and executives,” “Identify senior level obstacles and then bypass to present issues to top executives,” and “Round table discussion with all interested parties.” I will leave it open as to his optimum solution, as this will be impossible for you to judge: since you are not in his particular circumstances, with his particular range of talents.

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a potential solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Stimulating an executive into action?’” We will appreciate your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Making the most of an initial meeting: by means of Option Solving!

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Faced with an initial meeting that could be delicate as well as full of possibilities, is something worth thinking about. Option Solving is a great way to prepare for such a meeting in the realization that, ‘You only get one shot at it.’ No second chances: it’s now or never.

So, perhaps, a good starting point is posing the question, “What is the best outcome to aim for in my meeting with Jack B, considering…” Now we have moved forward with the option solving technique, which requires you to form the right question at the outset. As we see above, it starts with the key point, but then goes on to flush out the considerations, such as: “…that he probably sees me as a competitor, he feels he is already covering areas I offer, he feels confident in his own shoes, and he has already filled his product schedule?

Now you have started your intuitive powers going, as they want to answer this thought provoking question. But those powers can answer your question even more by giving them an even better framework formed by two ‘bookends’, the Ying and the Yang of all the possibilities; and, by their very nature, the most extreme of all the possibilities. In my case, it worked out to be: “Allow him to continue keeping his distance,” or at the other end, “Develop a close working partnership.”

 

With these, your intuitive mind can now start creatively racing away to flush out all the other possibilities, such as: “Consider talking to his team about some alternative products”… see Latest Example for three out of the seven I cooked up. I naturally won’t share my outcome choice because you are not standing in my shoes and cannot possibly feel my full circumstances. Therefore, you would be likely to draw a different conclusion. However, you should now be prepared to follow the same approach to get the most out of your next important meeting: buying the book would be helpful, too. 

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a potential solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. 

Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Best option to deal with a company hornet’s nest?’”  You’re your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Eliminating Our National Budget Deficit:by means of Option Solving!

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Just imagine if we could possibly get both sides together in Washington to have an objective and mature discussion about “Eliminating the National Budget Deficit.” As an admittedly heavily biased person toward the use of Option Solving, it seems that I increasingly hear more and more references to Washington looking at its options on different issues. Whether that’s because my attention has been extra-sensitized to it because of my passion, or whether the idea is gaining more ground, is hard for me to discern.

Anyway, if I were the facilitator of the meeting about eliminating the national budget deficit, I would first encourage the participants to come up with an appropriate question. It would probably start with something like this: “What is our best national option for eliminating the budget deficit by 2020, considering…” Then I would encourage the participants to come up with potential key considerations. After we produce a fairly extensive list, we would, by means of confidential polling of the participants, get it down to some of the most significant ones, say: “…the retirement of baby boomers, humanely address entitlement programs, the necessity to stimulate robust economic growth, and our need to meet internal and external security threats?” (see Latest Example).

Now I would ask the meeting participants to frame the option limits with “bookends,” those Ying and Yang options that are least likely to be considered. After some raucous discussion, we might come up with: “Sustain Spending and Tax Cut Levels of 2010” at one end, and at the other “Cut Spending and Raise Taxes to those of 2000 Levels (Millennium economics: the last time we had a surplus).”

 

With these interesting option limits, which most people are likely to reject, hence putting their creative intuitions into high gear for better alternatives, they might start digging up some of the options given in the Latest Example (refer to please). Ultimately, whatever they are, it would then be interesting for Congress to launch a national, binding referendum. By a national debate on the options and a referendum on the voters’ confidential, preferred option, we would have the ultimate wisdom of the crowd on which politicians could then put into action. With luck, we will then have made substantial progress on our debt issue by 2020. (Your views always welcome.)

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a potential solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. 

Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Making the most of an initial meeting?’”  Give us your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Forming the right collaborative relationship with another group:by means of Option Solving!

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

 

Not so long ago I was in the company of a senior academic executive. As a relative newcomer, he was trying to make his mark and one of the things he was conscious of was the need to improve collaboration with his academic affairs group, which had become strained over the years.

We quickly got around to framing a suitable question to inspire his intuitive, creative juices to move into high gear. As you will see in the Latest Example: we started with the words; “What is my best option for forming a really collaborative relationship with academic affairs, considering…” We then looked at some considerations and decided to focus on: “…the need to overcome a historical divide, the feeling of Student Affairs  being viewed as a ‘step-child’, to gain allies for various future programs, and firming-up the realization that education occurs both outside (as well as inside) the classroom?”

 

With this in place, we could now start digging into finding the best ‘bookends’ (extreme options) to further frame and prod his intuitive mind to develop the ultimate best range of options. The bookends (the Ying and the Yang) which emerged were: “Sit on the situation as is” and “Set up shop in the same offices as academic affairs.” Now these were in place, he was able to come up with likely options, some of which you will see in the latest example. Again, we’ve limited these because it’s unreal to expose others to options that they cannot judge one way or the other, since they were not in my client’s spot.

In this executive’s case, once we had worked through the option solving scenario, I encouraged him to use it as an outline “cheat sheet” where he could go through the same exercise with his nine key leaders as a team exercise. The added advantage, by doing it with his team, is that he can get nine independent votes from a confidential poll. Out will come the “wisdom of his crowd,” which will be much wiser than any decision he takes on his own. He will also gain the “buy-in” of his team, too. What more can you ask?

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a recent solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. 

Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Our options for eliminating the budget deficit?’”  You’re your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Making the Most of My New Year’s Resolution: by means of Option Solving!

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Two weeks ago a lot of people were either in the process of making or had already made a New Year’s Resolution. It is well known that few New Year’s Resolutions neither make it very far nor, even if they do, are not acted upon especially diligently. Maybe you’ve already abandoned yours; maybe you’re at the half-hearted stage.

One of the reasons for such paucity in success is because people are really not emotionally committed to their intentions. This is where option solving comes in because, if the technique is used properly, users are emotionally committed to its choices. By tapping into ones intuitive mind, we are more likely to connect with the emotional side of our decision making and therefore our level of commitment increases.

To this end, anyone making a New Year’s Resolution could start out with a question along the lines: “What is my optimal resolution for this year, considering the economic environment is still rather tight, my family’s needs, my own need to move forward, and my need to accomplish something really valuable?” (Note the considerations in the second part of the question.)

 

With this question in place, it is now possible to anchor it with the more extreme options (otherwise known as ‘bookends’). These could include: “Not pursuing a resolution this year” at one end and “Make a great breakthrough this year.”

 

From here, we can now insert at least 5-6 New Year Resolution choices in between, in order to stretch the choices as much as possible. Sleep on them overnight: this is particularly important to increase the level of commitment. Such natural emotional distancing enables our intuitive mind to really explore all the issues and challenges associated with the different options. By the following morning, it will be settled on the option we have the best chance of keeping. And so our resolution becomes more of a reality instead of a maybe. Come to think of it, now I can make my own resolution.    

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a recent solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. 

Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Forming the right collaborative relationship with another group or department?’”  You’re your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Getting Someone to Reconsider their Position:Resolved using Option Solving!

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Peter Arthur-Smith

Not so long ago, a colleague and I were grappling with that perennial issue within the organization world, “Getting a key person to change his or her mind.” Of course, one of the first things which should be done, when faced with this sort of dilemma, is to determine that changing people’s minds will be beneficial for them.

In this case, we felt that it would be significantly beneficial to this person’s organization if we were to change his mind. We had a particular exercise in mind that we wanted him to experience, which would have a worthy impact both on him and his organization. However, he had closed the door, at least for the time being.

My colleague and I initially set about formulating an appropriate question, commencing with the words: “What is my best alternative for encouraging Jack to reconsider and participate in out XYZ session?” This, however, had to be bolstered by some thoughtful considerations, such as: He’s already made up his mind, He could use the outcome to provide great leadership to ABC organization, He could benefit from some positive re-education, and of course Dealing with his financial issues.

From this we figured out appropriate “bookends,” those more extreme options that help frame the best outcome. In this case, it quickly became apparent the most obvious two were: Let sleeping dogs lie, and at the other end Offer to do a free demo (having already done one free demo related to something else, this became a less tasteful option from our perspective).

From there we started to explore possible options, which included: Have lunch with this person and a third party confidante; Give the third party confidante a free snapshot view of the proposed XYZ session; Get an influential board member to participate in a free snapshot session, and so on. Again, it’s not important to reveal my colleague’s chosen option (we came up with 6) and, at the moment of writing this scenario, my colleague hadn’t fully tested it out. But it does go to show how option solving can be so valuable in a testing situation like this.

Please refer to the Latest Example to view the overall picture of a recent solution. If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. 

Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘Making the most of my New Year’s resolution?’”  You’re your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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  • Six Principles of Option Solving

    1. Ask the right contextual question and frame the possibilities through bookends
    2. Be imaginitive and think "Out of the Box"
    3. Avoid asking "how, why, when or where" until the best option is identified
    4. Avoid excluding any option until all options have emerged
    5. Allow participants to support a less than conclusiv option
    6. Accept hunches or gut feelings