garykoelling

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It helps to be an expert in something. Pick something you’re in to or uh, ‘Passionate’ as they say; management, communication, finance. Something. And commit to it. Read everything you can about the subject, join a group, write down your thoughts. Steal ideas. Try stuff.  Fail fast. Learn fast. It’s the Myth of Genius that you’re born brilliant. So you can give that one up now. Sir Isaac Newton wasn’t just being modest when he said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”  You’re going to have to work at it.

Actually, it might be better to think of yourself as a student of something (as long you don’t go around telling people, “I’m a student of blah blah blah” because that sounds douchey and turns people off) instead of thinking of yourself as an expert, at least in the beginning. This does two things. First, it puts you in the right frame of mind for solving problems because you’re open to learning and two, it actually does make you kind of an expert. You’d be amazed how little you have to know about something to know more about it than the guy sitting next to you.

It’s a well-worn phrase for a reason but, luck is a matter of being prepared when the need arises. I ended up being a social technology expert at Best Buy not because I’m so good-looking (which doesn’t hurt)  or particularly charming (I’m not) but but because I knew more than anyone else in the room when the subject came up - which wasn’t much.  Plus I was in to it - don’t forget to be ‘Passionate.’ If you’re not an expert in something you’ll never be prepared for anything even if you are in to it. In fact being an expert in something prepares you for more than just what you know about. Expertise is mostly a side effect of paying attention. If you get good at paying attention (even when you’re not ‘Passionate’ about the subject matter) you’ll pick up analogs and correlaries and other related stuff. This is especially true if you’re exposed to ‘inside baseball’ conversations - the minutiae and arcana of a particular subject matter that insiders trade with each other. It’s also a side-effect of being curious and if you’re curious you’re likely good at knowing how to find answers. And if you’re good at knowing how to find answers you can get there much faster than than that guy sitting next to you. Especially when you’re in to it. Whatever it is.

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Here’s an idea; solve a business problem. Try it. It’ll get you focused. This usually means you have to do meetings where they talk about business problems - these are usually some boring-ass meetings encrusted with nasty, impenetrable speadsheets and Power Point decks. Quite often these decks are meant to obfuscate the problem because a) the author has no idea what the problem is or b) they have identified a problem but either don’t know it or don’t want to tell anyone they found it because doing so is either impolitic or means more work - “Great job Stevens, now solve it.” But you are the kind of person who is all about solving problems so here’s what you do.

Solve one problem at a time. Often problems will be linked to make them appear bigger than they are because more often than not, people don’t really want to solve problems. Especially big hairy ones. A solution means risk; risk to a current, cushy and predictable position or risk to a current business model.  So once you’ve been able to identify what might be a problem you need to pull it apart and simplify it. Funsize it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask if the problem is a customer problem - it usually isn’t or at least it isn’t phrased as such. Problems, if they’re explicitly stated at all, are usually stated thusly: “Sales are shrinking.” Or worse, they’re stated as an objective “Increase sales.” You can’t do shit with either of those. Why are sales shrinking? State it as a customer problem: “I can’t find the product I need because.” The point is that you have a much better chance at being able to come up with a solution if you can scrub a problem clean and state it as a customer problem usually beginning with; “I hate...” “I can’t...” “I need...” etc. Worth repeating: If you’re not solving a customer or user or audience problem, you’re just playing with yourself. The outcome may feel good for awhile but it doesn’t really change anything.