Here’s my leadership email to Reno County Leaders on Monday, October 29:
I had a child wake up croupy this morning. You know what that means, since I’m not an M.D….a trip to the doctor. Diagnosis is needed. For the next few weeks, we are going to explore diagnosing the situation again. It’s a key part of the KLC Competencies. I’m lifting some of this content from a document that’s available online: The Competencies For Civic Leadership.
Under DIAGNOSE SITUATION, we read:
“What does it mean to diagnose situations for the purpose of exercising effective leadership on difficult civic challenges? And why is it the first of the KLC Competencies?”
“If you are trying to intervene to make progress on a tough issue, it is critical you understand what you are intervening into. And our experience and observation is that the biggest single mistake people make in trying to exercise leadership on civic challenges is in misdiagnosing the situation. Chuck Krider, a longtime godfather of Kansas economic policy, put it this way: ‘Problem identification is key. If you don’t identify the right problems, then you are working on the wrong thing! What are you going to work on? What are you going to do? To set good objectives and goals, you have to understand the problem.’”
We’ll stop there for today. Hopefully you feel the importance of this. Maybe begin our journey in reacquainting yourself with diagnosing the situation by thinking of a difficult challenge you’re facing. Like a diamond with multi-faceted beauty, your challenge probably has multi-faceted problems and solutions. Think of how you typically have responded. What other things might you need to consider. This is how we begin to diagnose. We recognize a problem and notice the gap between where it leaves us and where we’d like to be. But, more on that next time…
I hope you’re encouraged in the difficult and needed work you are giving to our community. With you in the trenches of leadership…