A world of problems?

“Men are disturbed not by events, but by their opinions about events” Epictetus

I was having a conversation with a business colleague and she asked my opinion on why successful people demonstrate particularly good insight when confronting a problem.  I answered “experience” which was met with a look of come on you can do better than that. So I quickly recovered and asked if she has ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the 2nd century Roman Emperor and she fired back “What does that have to do with solving business problems”. I said quite a bit in that it lays out the fundamental beliefs of the Stoic Philosophy that I’ve observed exists in most successful business leaders, I went on to provide an explanation.

Good business leaders have well-honed observation skills when looking at a problem. They can detach themselves from their emotions and the emotion of others in evaluation the problem and likely courses of action. In addition, they don’t fall prey to the temptation of jumping to a conclusion as a result of a “perception”. Perceptions in problem solving include all the baggage someone thinks they know at the exclusion of many more possibilities. 

Leaders understand that a problem is an opportunity releasing in them a burst of creative energy. This burst of energy is called persistence and when properly indoctrinated into your character over a career we call that perseverance. 

Leaders also pursue the truth no matter where it leads and they have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Following a thorough assessment they move to establishing a sequence of priorities and tasks that becomes their problem solving framework. The next step is to gather any necessary resource, usually either money, people, or both, and start at the first priority completing each before going to the next until the problem is satisfactorily solved.

Leaders typically display a steely determination that is commonly characterized as will power. Will power is another trait that is misunderstood as a stubbornness to get their way. Will power in the stoic philosophy is ingrained with traits of humility and flexibility. The thought being that your emotions can easily betray you and sabotage your efforts. I’ve seen many careers ruined and fortunes lost because of some emotional outburst of self-righteousness about how someone felt they were being treated.

So the next problem you confront approach it the way Marcus Aurelius ruled his empire and you will win many more battles than you lose.

So let’s get to work.