“What if we have identified the wrong problem statement and focusing on the wrong problem?”
Reflecting back to telecom, what made sense to me and seemed simple did not appear to be so for several others. Some understood my troubleshooting process because we’ve done it several times over to isolate the problem quickly when other techs seemed to be all over the place.
Back then, it never failed to shock me how some techs were scattered with their approach to isolating the root cause. I’m realizing now that hubby and I worked well together because he’s very linear. There’s a drawback to that. He’s very linear and step-by-step-minded.
I can flow between linear and deviating in a hot second to explore something that was noticed. I pivot easily and for some folks, this is challenging for them. For others–it’s downright infuriating. I get it now. Back then, I did not.
It’s sort of like the golden rule. What makes sense to us may not make sense to others. What works for us may not work for others.
Processes are important to me. What is the process? What is the scope of work (boundaries)? Once I know the boundaries, it provides an ability to know where the gaps are so agility can happen if it needs to happen.
We were introduced to model-based problem-solving last week, at least–it’s new to me anyway. It generated tremendous anxiety. “What is this? What are they talking about? I’m so confused and lost!”
Note: The above will change as my learning progresses.
Woah. There’s that vulnerability. I don’t understand something and that is a huge discomfort when it seems like everyone else in the meeting seems to have clarity about what is going on. What if they don’t though?
There’s very little I can do about whether people are willing to step up and step out to raise their hands and say, “I don’t understand anything you’re talking about right now.” I can choose to be that person.
I reached out to the leadership team. “Can someone please help me understand what this is about? I feel so lost and I don’t understand any of the vernacular of this. Can someone please explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old?”
So, here I am. Digging into this and the network engineer in me is going, “Oh my god! Why didn’t anyone teach me this a long time ago?!”
Where can I practice this in my life so I’m better with it at work? Well–everywhere, really. Leaning into our vulnerabilities is uncomfortable, terrifying, and it can be discouraging if we let it. At the same time, a part of resilience is radical acceptance of what we are feeling, inspecting and challenging our biases to isolate the root cause, then implementing an option to address a problem that we have identified within ourselves.
Next on the syllabus (many thanks to my husband), is Model-Based Design.
