Here my leadership email to leaders in Reno County this week:
For the past few weeks, I’ve really been hammering on our need to diagnose the situation. And, I want to diagnose our situation of diagnosing the situation by coming up for air today. So, let’s take a deep breath. Seriously. It’s Monday. Breath. And, as we jump in, a quick review: We started highlighting the importance of diagnosing and followed that up with a couple of reasons why we misdiagnose: we rush into solutions or we try to find pain-free fixes to problems. Then, we emphasized the importance of determining whether our problem is adaptive or technical. So, coming up for air today, let me try and “Give The Work Back” by asking you to define this difficult challenge of diagnosing. Why do you and I tend to misdiagnose or rush right past this important piece? What might be some potential solutions to your lack of practice in diagnosing the situation?
I know these are hard questions for a Monday, but your consideration of them is an act of leadership and leadership is a difficult, risky work. I think we all wish that leadership was easy and the world would just cater to our best laid plans, but the reality is that leadership is an opportunity for us to propel our purposes in the world. We can make a difference. Today, what’s one thing that you could practice in this whole diagnosis piece that might further your leadership? That’s what I’m hoping all these weeks of engaging in this subject might provoke. My hope is that we would make progress on the issues we care about. So, will you join me today by stepping back from the minutiae for a second and asking diagnostic questions? It just might help us make that progress we long to see take place.