Focusing On The Problem Or The Solution?

In most workplaces, there are problems and challenges galore- people issues, performance issues, competitive pressures, product delays, technical bugs, and many more. Success largely depends on how people deal with these challenges.

Now, when it comes to dealing with challenges, people take two approaches.

One approach is that they Focus on the problem.

“There is a problem.”

“Why did this happen to me?” 

“How did this happen?”

“Who is responsible?” 

They are good at stating the obvious-that there is a problem. They look to assign blame for the problems and use them as an excuse to establish that things are out of their control.

The second approach is where people Focus on the solution.

How do we deal with this situation? How do we fix the issue?

What is the problem telling us? What can we learn from it?

What can we change in our approach?

In the second approach, people don’t get fixated on the issue. Instead, they ask questions to understand the problems and look for solutions.

Workplaces always value people who are good at the second approach, because they fix issues.