The Rule of Thumb OR How to Connect Horizontally


Why is it that some people not only capture but solve issues early on and other’s don’t?
Why is it that some people connect people and tasks and other’s don’t ?

It’s no secret. It’s all about awareness & application of it.

Think about

What do you do if you find yourself suddenly in a life-threatening situation ? Do you act upon it by intuition and safe your life, or do you skip your first impression and maybe gather more data instead ?

What do you do if you find your company, your project or anything alike on a dangerous course ? Do you act upon it or will you postpone your decision and gather more data ?

If you act upon both situations, you can stop reading here.
If you only act upon the first case and think about HOW to handle a heavy workload about difficult matters for the second case, keep reading to find out. 

The Strength of the Unconscious

Remember: Fixing any issue costs time we don’t have, money nobody reimburses us for, energy that’s needed elsewhere, motivation that gets lost, and last but not least it is causes a lot of frustration we have to overcome again. I don't want that and you don't want that, right ?  Nevertheless, pure data collection will do nothing about it either. So what are the alternatives we have at hand ?

Albert Einstein once said :
“The intuitive mind is a gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

If we consider intuition as the summarized wisdom of our experiences to be applied, we are getting closer. However, when does it need to come into force ?
When is the right time to take advantage of our “inner voice” ?

I suggest at

  • any difficult matter we don’t know enough about.
  • any time we have an argument as a group.
  • any time we enter into a situation we have no experience with.
  • any time we heavily focus on achieving goals and creating success (instead of focusing on power and money).

Solutions

a) We have a quick Rule of Thumb that helps to apply skills & ideas wisely:

  • 80 % of the work can be automated. It has been done by others before, in other contexts, and one can find some well-prepared & marketed tools for it. It still has to fit your needs.
  • 20 % of our time remains available to work on intellectual challenges. Those are the things that have never been done by anyone else. Use a piece of paper and a pen to set up your own system. Take advantage of your & others intuition and tailor your activities. Take advantage of existing thinking tools * or develop your own *. The automated 80% grant you the time to learn new skills all day long.

As for the 20 % - all we need at this stage is accept

  • that our judgement refers to some form of measurement which is unlikely to be definitively pinned down. However, applying it at the right time, we notice the results get better and better.
  • it is all about serious interpersonal thinking and finding the "leverage" point in a specific situation that requires relatively little effort to change, with a high level of impact.

b) Here’s a surprisingly simple 7-part template you can use to begin outlining any idea that you perceive:

Issue

 

Insights

 

Solutions

 

Outcomes

 

Decisions

 

Execution

 

Conclusion

 

Yes, it’s that basic fashion that helps you break an (initially only) intuition into tiny steps and follow up on them. Segmenting is everything. This helps to what we call “apply the silent wisdom”.

Albeit it’s not as easy as it looks like - try yourself!
and find an example as well as more details here.

Conclusion

  1. That way you will learn to prevent rather than to fix issues.
  2. That way to you will be able to develop your own system that can be mirrored. You Sketch a New Draft that can be copied as and when needed.

If you think this was helpful for you and you would like to read more, » subscribe and we’ll keep you in the loop of research-backed insight and practical advice for Happy Operations.
We share stuff in our emails we don't publish anywhere else.