You Can Change Other People

CHAPTER 14PROBLEMS ARE SIGNPOSTS POINTING TO ENERGIZING OUTCOMES: NO MORE CODE, NO MORE BUGS

Back to Ben and Dara.

Ben said, “Yes,” he'd really appreciate Dara's help in thinking through the Ramona problem. And Dara is eager to roll up her sleeves. After all, she's got a lot of experience building and managing teams, along with some hard-won wisdom about how to work with aggressive know-it-alls like Ramona. How she longs to share it with Ben! But she knows that doing so now would be a mistake.

Once you receive permission to help, you'll be tempted to jump in—to share advice, brainstorm solutions, and help your partner solve their problem. I know it's tempting, but don't do it—not yet.

In fact, the problem is actually a distraction from what's really important, from what will really make a difference in their life.

This is the crucial insight I want to impart in Step 2:

Problems (what we don't want) are signposts pointing to energizing outcomes (what we do want).

If we solve their problem before identifying their energizing outcome, they will not be much better off than they were before.

Let's look at some ridiculous examples that make the point. In the children's book Thank You, Amelia Bedelia, the main character removes stains from her employer's dress by cutting the stains out with scissors. No more stains—problem solved!

In the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley, a harried coder tasks his Artificial Intelligence program with identifying and fixing the bugs in their mission-critical ...