Guiding Principle: Reflect on the Past, Live in the Present, Work Towards the Future
In summary, this principle is intended to
Inject curiosity into the minds of ourselves and others. Asking more questions to understand and appreciate the context of why and how things and people work the way they do. Knowledge is good; context is better; discernment is the ideal.
Focus on sustainability as an essential factor in problem-solving. All solutions should be built so they are adopted today but are flexible so they can be used for a future that we anticipate because of our curiosity. Solutions that get thrown away can be just as wasteful as the problems that they were created to solve.
Increase inclusivity. All people have a history of events and experiences (their past) that impacts how they interpret and interact with the world today, and it shapes what they think is possible for themselves and others in the future. Appreciating this truth on a generic level should lead to being more empathetic because you are more open to acknowledging the value of the diversity of interactions, experiences, and expectations of others. Getting to know people’s context on a personal level increases empathy and creates connections. Connections create community. People long to be in empathetic communities and will work harder to see them succeed.
Remind us that a fresh and curious perspective helps overcome stagnant approaches to solving problems. Some call that innovation, but that word means so many things now I try to avoid using it (without a lot of context).
The Rationale
If you have a job, you are in the problem-solving business. You might be on the front end of that (customer service or sales), operating in the background (marketing, product development), work in the trenches (IT, manufacturing), or find your work adjacent to those who are (HR, Learning). Still, the reason your job exists is that a need was identified, and your company felt it could meet that need. You were then hired to support solving that need either directly or indirectly.
If you disagree with that statement, please stop reading and ask your leader why the company created your job, don’t stop asking that question until someone can tell you the problem your job was intended to help solve. Having and internalizing this purpose is the key that unlocks the door to greatness for your career.
The problem with problems is twofold. First, they evolve over time, and second, they have lots of symptoms that aren’t actually the problem, just annoyances.
The combination of this two-fold nature of problems and a lack of genuine curiosity is what I have found to be at the center of why there are so many reoccurring issues and band-aid solutions to broken bones problems.
Much like problems, curiosity should also be twofold. First, you must be looking at the past, and second looking towards the future. If you lack curiosity about past context (how did we get here/why are we here) and what the future could look like (where are we going and why are we going there) you will always only do work that makes sense today and is obsolete tomorrow.
Why this Matters
Three Problems with Solving only for today
As problems evolve, if your solution remains stagnant, when tomorrow arrives, the problem returns. But it worse than that; depending on how much the problem evolved, not only has the problem returned but your stagnant solution is so outmatched you have to start solving it all over again. Waste is created as the old solution is thrown into the trash can.
This also occurs when you solve today’s problems using yesterday's thinking or context. Due to a lack of curiosity about the past, we take a person’s present appraisal of the situation as the absolute truth. You must be curious enough about how we got here to ask why. (I wrote an entire post on why people hate the why question and how to ask it, so it is received better found here)
Another situation is where people will avoid considering a solution because of something that happened in the past. Have you heard things like we tried that in 2005 and it didn’t work, or we used to do it that way but stopped when this happened, or when Mr. “X” was here, he hated the idea, so we won’t do it?
In a rapidly evolving world, the shelf life on that didn’t work in the past, or that is too far in the future thinking is months, not years, so helping people adopt a more open mindset will go a long way towards better outcomes and providing more significant and more sustainable impacts.
If appreciating the past is essential, and the solution we build needs to be built for the future, why do we even care about today?
Since your job is to solve a problem and that problem is getting attention today, whatever solution you provide must be something people will be willing to adopt today. That means it must…
Solve one of today’s problems in a way deemed acceptable by today’s standards and within your client bases’ expectations. What I mean is that it should be close enough to costing what people are willing to pay, looking like something people expect (or close enough they are not repulsed), and functioning in a way that is comfortable enough people are willing to learn the future focused new parts.
If you only build for tomorrow, the future you envision will not arrive the way you envision it, or it will arrive, but someone who also solved for it in a way that people adopt it today will beat you in the future because they have captured the customer's hearts/minds/wallets by helping them today. This is true even if your solution for tomorrow is better.
That is why today matters, because adding value today earns you the right to help define the better future you envision.
Note: The inverse of this is to fall in love with today’s solution and never evolving it for tomorrow. This is just as dangerous (ask the founders of Blackberry who loved their keyboards).
What about the inclusivity part of this principle?
When you look at the inclusivity portion of this principle, what you see is that it’s about having respect for the individual and their history (the context they bring to a situation) as well as having respect for the situation and its history (the context around the problem and any current solution in place).
I like to think (sometimes a bit naïve) that this mindset eliminates accepting a lot of negative snap judgments about people and situations. Meaning if you are respectful of the past and that there is context behind everything people say, think and do, you are less likely to assume negative intent about what people say, think, and do. Because if you operate from a mindset of, if had the same experiences in the past, I might react the same way they are today. Assuming positive intent is a big part of this process, check out thoughts on that here.
So when people reject your ideas today, it is just as much a failure on their part to be open to new ideas as it is a failure on your part to create a compelling reason to consider your proposal. A compelling reason that takes into account the past.
To avoid this failure, you must have curiosity for the past and ask questions that seek to understand so that you won’t accept their interpretation of the situation as being correct just because they say so. Asking questions can lead to discussions and debate and crossing the acting like a jerk line. Help for what to do when that happens can be found here.
That is a little soft on people; I thought there would be more depth around the people side?
Empathy is an underrated and exceptionally powerful mindset. People desire to be in a community; it's part of their design. As your ability to empathize with people from various backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints goes up, so too does your ability to create a community others want to be a part of. This is one of the more powerful aspects of inclusivity, the ability to create communities of people who appreciate the value each community member brings to the group and desires the entire community to succeed as a whole and as individuals. This occurs through
Appreciating and valuing the past/history of each community member and then allowing for the context to influence your interactions and reactions to their reactions
Valuing the expertise, knowledge, abilities of the other community members and how the diversity of skills help the entire team be more successful and also accounting for the present circumstances of others when determining what is acceptable expectations/outputs
Desiring other community members to achieve future goals/aspirations/dreams and, where possible helping them in their achievement because instead of competing to win for yourself, you strive to see others succeed more
Think of it like this?
Wouldn’t you love to be part of a community that acts in the above way, and wouldn’t you invite others to be a part of it as well?
Inference: That community get its choice of members (the best talent)
Would you be willing to give more effort in helping a community like this succeed?
Inference: If that community is made up of the top talent, that extra effort would be an exponential multiplier
If everyone in the community is giving more and higher quality effort in the pursuit of success, wouldn’t that community have more success than other communities?
Inference: Top talent working harder and having more success would mean problems are being solved in a better way, which means more positive impact to business/customers (common definition of success)
And if the community is more successful, wouldn’t it achieve more and more of its goals and become even more and more successful?
Inference: Individuals and teams that create the most value/impact are the ones who get rewarded and therefore are the teams best positioned for individuals to achieve their goals (promotion, compensation, new/more interesting work, fringe perks that are meaningful Take time to figure out what motivates you.
Conclusion
Having healthy respect and curiosity for the past, with a focus on delivering solutions that have an impact today but are built with the future in mind, is where the knowledge professional must operate. Ignoring any one of these aspects may not result in immediate failure, but it will slow (or kill) momentum and decrease the sustainability of efforts.
That is why individuals, teams, and businesses must Reflect on the Past, live in the present, but work towards the Future.