A Simple Change Is All It Takes
One of the greatest paradoxes in business is that you need to change everything to solve a problem; yet, some of the greatest solutions in business have come by changing nothing except one’s perspective.
What I am quickly learning in the field of business and other facets of life is that individuals are quick to fix problems by drastic actions, rather than by taking a closer look at the problem itself and assessing it appropriately.
This past Thanksgiving I was visiting my family when my Dad asked me to help “destroy” some old pieces of furniture. My dad handed me a saw, and together we started to cut an old dining room table in half. Despite several minutes of laborious work, the table was still intact; the saw was only making marginal wedges into the wood every few minutes.
Eventually, with little progress, my dad and I concluded that the blade was dull and that we needed to buy a new blade. Still, we plugged along, slowly and roughly sawing through the table until completion.
Upon finishing, we discovered why the saw wasn’t cutting as well as we would have hoped: the blade had been upside down the entire time. Had we taken a closer look at the blade itself before jumping to conclusions that the saw itself was unusable, we would have saved ourselves from wasted time and potential money.
Often in business when things aren’t going according to plan, individuals assume they need to take extreme measures to change the outcome or resolve an issue. In reality, most solutions can be reached by examining the problem from a different view and making minor adjustments.
In my business ventures, I’ve noticed that most problems can be quickly resolved by making small adjustments such as shifting employees to areas that better suit their talents or allocating resources in different ways. By closely examining issues and strategically making appropriate changes, I’ve been able to save the time, money and hassle that usually results from jumping to drastic conclusions and obscene solutions.
Beyond the context of business, these same strategies can be used to assess and solve matters in other capacities of life. Whether it’s concerning education, careers, relationships or other matters — when we hit roadblocks, rather than resorting to polarized decisions, we must not be ignorant enough to take a closer look at the problem itself. When we do this, we can identify underlying issues and resolve them by making modest alterations.
The world of business is constantly flooding with new, bold concepts and innovations, yet there is something to be said about the power of strategic, observant thinking. In business, success and problem solving doesn’t necessarily require pioneering something completely new, but rather being attentive to the underlying problems and treating them with seemingly simple solutions.
Sometimes, the solution can be the simple flip of a blade.
