<\/p>\n
Some leadership challenges are nothing more than a little pothole in the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n Others are more like a giant speed-bump.<\/strong><\/p>\n But every now and then you will face something far greater; you will face a challenge that can only be described as an enormous brick wall completely blocking your path.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And when that happens, you need to know where to look for the solution.<\/strong><\/p>\n And\u00a0the first step to solving an unsolvable leadership challenge is knowing which bucket to dip into.<\/strong><\/p>\n Years ago I inherited the task of trimming $400,000 out of a $3,000,000 budget.<\/p>\n The first $200,000 had been relatively painless. But now the job needed deep cuts; I needed to trim another $200,000, and I had run out of ideas. I was stumped.<\/p>\n But a leadership mentor of mine asked me the question that changed everything.<\/p>\n \u201cScott, what bucket are you looking for your solution in?\u201d<\/p>\n I pressed him to explain.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it seems to me you\u2019re looking for answers in your \u2018easy fix\u2019 bucket. You\u2019ve already emptied that one. That\u2019s how you trimmed the first $200,000. But to finish this job, you need to learn about 3 different buckets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSupposing I were to tell you that you had to run the entire organization next year with only $1,000,000,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhat would you do? I\u2019ll tell you exactly what you\u2019d do. You would figure out a way to run the organization for $1,000,000. But you would figure it out using radical innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n He was right.<\/p>\n The \u201ceasy fix\u201d bucket doesn\u2019t solve unsolvable problems. You need utterly new approaches.<\/p>\n Those are found in the radical innovation bucket.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll bet you faced little push-back with your first round of cuts,\u201d he went on. \u201cThe next round will face serious opposition. That\u2019s when you need uncommon courage.\u201d<\/p>\n Unsolvable problems are always faced with that kind of bravery.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you start implementing your radical solution, you need to find a way to navigate some tricky relational waters,\u201d he concluded. \u201cPeople are emotionally invested in their work. Keep your emotional wits about you at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n The higher the stakes, the greater the need for emotional intelligence.<\/p>\n So when you next need a solution for an unsolvable problem, start by looking closely at the kinds of solutions you\u2019re bringing to the table.<\/p>\n If the problem is still overwhelming, it could be because you\u2019ve been looking in the wrong bucket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some leadership challenges are nothing more than a little pothole in the road. Others are more like a giant speed-bump. But every now and then you will face something far greater; you will face a challenge that can only be described as an enormous brick wall completely blocking your path.\u00a0 And when that happens,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738,478,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5940,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5939\/revisions\/5940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Radical Innovation Bucket<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Uncommon Courage Bucket<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Emotional Intelligence Bucket<\/strong><\/h2>\n