DON’T FIX MY PROBLEM
I was a Research Chemist once with a firm called ICI.
A new graduate, I was given a problem to investigate that was causing some problems for a particular business.
Let me say right now that I was no great chemist. But, fresh pair of eyes and all that, I did some reading, had a think, did a few experiments, and came up with a theory.
So I tested the theory. And bingo. The theory fit the facts. Always a good test of a theory, that.
As it seemed to me, I had solved the problem. I wrote up my findings in a short paper, sent it to all concerned, and waited for the applause.
What happened?
Nothing.
It took a while, being new to the big boys’ game, but I came to understand that “all concerned”, or certainly most of them, didn’t want the problem to be solved. So they ignored my work.
Why didn’t they want it solved? Because their careers, their salaries, their status internally and sometimes externally, all depended on this being a “really difficult problem” which they were striving to solve.
The problem’s very existence gave them security.
If the problem went away, their purpose and the narrative they had constructed about themselves went away with it. They would need to learn to tell a different story.
Fast forward a few years. I’m an Executive Coach now. There were some other bits in between this and the Research Chemist phase, but we’ll skip over them.
As an Executive Coach I’m no longer trying to solve the problem. Big sigh of relief.
But I do try to help others solve their problems. The parts about the fresh pair of eyes, and about coming up with theories and testing them in the real world? They still apply.
And yet, as a client said to me a while back, we can do all the analysis together, and come up with a way forward, but “I might well still choose to ignore it”.
Why?
Because, they said, “I don’t have the courage to change”.
And why is that? Because, at some level and just like the ICI folk long ago, there is something about having the problem rather than going to the trouble of solving it, that is working for them. In a perverse way they are happier to talk about it than to solve it.
Do I do that? Do I tell myself and others about my problem, and somehow let that define me?
Do you?
And might both of us be better off if we summoned up the courage to tell a different story?
If you’d like to read a bit more about this idea, I wrote a short book about it. It might not fit the “one minute read” criterion but you’d zip through it in an afternoon. It’s here - https://www.martinhowden.com/courage-to-change. Just follow the links if you’d like one.
