Don't Solve Problems - Copy Success

When we analyze a big, complicated problem -- like malnutrition in Vietnam, or a married couple nearing divorce, or a business on the verge of bankruptcy -- we seek a solution that befits the scale of the problem. If the problem is a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, our brains will go looking for a 24-inch peg to fill it. So, naturally, the experts on malnutrition in Vietnam wanted to talk about poverty and education and sanitation systems.

Our focus, in times of change, goes instinctively to the problems at hand. What's broken and how do we fix it? This troubleshooting mind-set serves us well -- most of the time. If you run a nuclear power plant and your diagnostics turn up a disturbing signal once per month, you should most certainly obsess about it and fix the problem. And if your child brings home a report card with five As and one F, it makes sense to freak out about the F.

But in times of change, this mind-set will backfire. If we need to make major changes, then (by definition) we don't have a near-spotless report card. A lot of things are probably wrong. The "report card" for our diet, or our marriage, or our business, is full of Cs and Ds and Fs. So if you ask yourself, What's broken and how do I fix it?, you'll simply spin your wheels. You'll spend a lot of time agonizing over issues that are True But Useless (TBU).

When it's time to change, we must look for bright spots -- the first signs that things are working, the first precious As and Bs on our report card. We need to ask ourselves a question that sounds simple but is, in fact, deeply unnatural: What's working and how can we do more of it? Search for the bright-spots and copy what they do.

But knowing the solution isn't enough. For anything to change, you need to adopt the new working habits. Knowledge does not change behavior. We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors. You have to practice it. You have to act differently until the different started to feel normal. You have to act yourself into a new way of thinking by actually doing the new way. Most important, it must become your change, something that arises from the local wisdom of your situation. In tough times, we'll see problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" will often kick in. That's why, to make progress on a change, we need to provide crystal-clear direction -- show people where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential: They provide the road map.

You may not be fighting malnutrition or going through emotional turmoil, but if you're trying to change things, there are going to be bright spots in your field of view. And if you learn to identify and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently? Remember, to look for bright spots. Anytime you have a bright spot, your mission is to clone it. Our rational brain has a "problem focus" when it needs a "solution focus". But what we need to know is this: Even in failure there is success. These flashes of success, even in failure, these bright spots, can provide our road map for action - and the hope that change is possible (via fastcompany).