Jan. 27 2012

Often, we’re hesitant to identify a problem out of fear we can’t solve it. Knowing that we have to live with something that we’re unable to alter gives us a good reason to avoid verbalizing it—highlighting it just makes it worse.

While this sort of denial might be okay for individuals (emphasis on might), it’s a lousy approach for organizations of any size. That’s because there are almost certainly resources available that can solve a problem if you decide it’s truly worth solving.

Put yourself and your people on a path to finding problems without regard for whether or not they are capable of solving them. Queue them up, prioritize them and then go find the help your organization needs to solve them.

Just because you don’t know what to do about it doesn’t make it less of a problem.

Mar. 18 2009

Jan. 12 2009

If our poverty were due to an earthquake or famine or war—if we lacked material things and the resources to produce them we could not expect to find the means to prosperity except in hard work, abstinence, and invention. In fact, our predicament is notoriously of another kind. It comes from some failure in the immaterial devices of the mind… Nothing is required, and nothing will avail, except a little clear thinking.
John Maynard Keynes (via jackcheng)