Do You Fix A Problem Or Create A Solution?

This past week I attended the National Convention for Call Centers in Montreal. The name of the organization is CAMX. I have met over the years at these conventions some amazing people who have become very successful in our industry. My article this week is about a comment made by John Ratliff, the CEO of Appletree during a presentation he made to the convention attendees. John asked this question during his presentation. "Do you fix a problem or create a solution"?

To me the answer was easy however I also needed to ask the question why to fully appreciate its intention. It's understanding the question where the solution lies. There are loads of problem solvers out there who love to fix things. It's human nature. Very gratifying. To John's point though getting something fixed is not permanent. It can break or go wrong again tomorrow. Creating a solution to the problem brings you closer to making the problem go away indefinitely. Here in lies the game changer.

John really got my attention when he threw this out. What an interesting perspective. My interpretation from a success point of view is it brings us all closer to removing things that repeatedly get in the way of our personal success. At the most simple level when we fix a problem we are reacting to an event or thing that went wrong. When we create a solution we are both fixing the problem and insuring that the problem does not keep returning. Problem solvers are working in their business and solutions driven individuals are working on their business. Simply put. When you work in your business you are just a cog in the wheel. When you are working on your business you are the one who tunes the engine.

I my opinion the most difficult part of making the change to the solution approach is to schedule the time to fully understand why the problem occurred. We must also understand that creating a long-term solution takes planning. Once we find the solution we must prepare a policy or instruction manual on how do deal with the issue should it arise again. The purpose being that someone else can deal with the problem and not just one person. In business, if there is more than one person who can address the problem then we have removed the weakest link. Mr. Ratliff had insisted that one must ask the "why" question five times to really start to understand why this happened. Asking the question why is the first part to creating the solution.

When we create a solution to personal problems and issues we are better able to focus on things that will take us to greater heights. What we want in our pursuit of overall success is to remove the things that keep us in a state of limiting beliefs. Our lives can be easily controlled by reacting to obstacles. If we remove the reoccurring obstacles we have created a solution. This will allow us to spend more of our time doing proactive activities that will bring us success. Success lives in the activities we do toward making us grow.