I remember spending hours trying to slide the pieces around so the numbers would finally fall into the right order… until my cousin showed me a different approach. He explained that you could stick a biro into the gap, pop the pieces out & then put back in the correct order.
Before you say “that’s not the point of the puzzle” – at the time, I was just grateful for a simple & creative solution to what felt like a complex problem.
Recently, I’ve been supporting two organisations facing their own version of a ‘sliding number puzzle.’ Without the luxury of a magic biro, three ideas have stood out:
(1) ‘Do less with less’
We often hear “do more with less.” In reality, that is rarely sustainable & it usually comes at the expense of your people.
A better starting point is doing less with less. Strip away rituals & routines that no longer add value. Many exist simply because they were once important or created as workarounds. Removing them creates capacity & shows your team you’re not just asking them to pedal harder.
(2) ‘Create a safe emergency’
The conditions for innovation matter. If people feel their jobs are under threat, they focus on self-preservation – not creativity.
Be transparent about the challenges & invite people to help rethink how work gets done. When people feel safe to contribute, good ideas tend to emerge. After all, culture is the infrastructure for your current & future organisation.
(3) ‘Balance problems with possibilities’
If you focus only on problems, you’ll simply generate more things to fix & risk creating a culture that manipulates metrics just to show progress.
Balance that with a focus on possibility & opportunity. It’s a powerful driver of motivation & creates forward momentum.
Let’s be honest – who springs out of bed excited to spend the day only analysing what went wrong?
So, if your team does its best work in a sandpit where people can experiment, but the current environment feels more like a courtroom where everyone is being judged, it might be time to rethink the problem you’re trying to solve.
Contact me at rupert@strongerhumans.com if you’d like to explore how to create the conditions for better thinking & better solutions.
#strongerhumans #bettersolutions
