The secret to building a high-performance culture: Proactive problem solving

Louise Wheal, Principal Consultant with JMJ, delves into the heart of transformation, emphasizing the vital role of navigating breakdowns to achieve breakthroughs. In this journey, she unveils the power of shifting from victimhood to proactive, collaborative problem-solving. This approach to cultural transformation is at the core of JMJ’s ‘making the impossible possible’ methodology.

We’ve all experienced this phenomenon. We set out with a clear intention, visualizing our goal, only to be confronted with a starkly different reality. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”, a statement that I’m sure will resonate with anybody who has ever set a truly challenging personal or professional ambition.

Throughout my consulting career, I’ve collaborated with numerous business leaders to help establish ambitious goals for their organization’s culture and performance, and then develop strategies for their realization. It’s clear that the road to success is never without its challenges. In this journey, I’ve come to realize that breakdowns and breakthroughs are not opposing forces but two sides of the same coin.

Embrace the inevitability of breakdowns

When we commit to an ambitious goal, it’s impossible to anticipate every obstacle we will encounter. No matter how meticulously we plan, there will always be roadblocks that disrupt our progress. These can take various forms, such as halted funding, key team members departing, conflicts, low morale, or project stagnation.

When we’re confronted with these barriers, our natural human responses kick in. We start creating stories about the situation, perhaps labelling someone as unreliable or even questioning the validity of our original intention. Emotions like anger, fear, frustration and disappointment also surface. Paradoxically, the more ambitious our intention, the stronger emotional and mental impact we are likely to experience when things don’t go as planned. And, if we don’t learn to use these reactions in a positive way, they can prevent us from taking the necessary steps to move forward powerfully.

Become a player, not a victim

What sets a problem apart from a declared breakdown? It’s all about perspective. When we adopt a ‘victim mindset’, we believe we are powerless to change circumstances. On the other hand, when we recognize and make the choice to declare a breakdown, we transform into active ‘players’. We are in control of the situation and have the ability to proactively shape the outcome.

This shift is the essence of JMJ’s breakdown technology and is at the heart of ‘making the impossible possible.’ It empowers us to:

1. Intervene
2. Create a pause
3. Bring the right people together
4. Declare a breakdown
5. Work through to a powerful conclusion

By interrupting our automatic responses this process refocuses attention on the reason why we set the intention in the first place.

Handling breakdowns in real-life scenarios

Here’s a real-world example of just how powerful this can be. A major capital project in Kazakhstan involved, at its peak, over 47,000 workers. Leadership aimed to implement Incident and Injury Free (IIF) practices. This included certification for a substantial number of foremen, without which they couldn’t sign permits to work.

The sheer scale of this certification task created a bottleneck with the project potentially being held up by the lack of availability of qualified foremen. In this high-stress environment, frustration and disappointment began to strain relationships.

The pivotal moment came during a senior executive leadership team (ELT) meeting, when a project manager declared a breakdown, highlighting the overwhelming number of people awaiting certification as the obstacle. This declaration marked a turning point. Everyone agreed that a new approach was needed, and an innovative action plan was formulated and implemented. Ultimately, this enabled certification to be fast tracked, leading to a successful resolution of the issues and a greater understanding between stakeholders.

As this case study vividly illustrates, when we acknowledge and declare a breakdown, we open the door to innovative problem solving and, ultimately, successful resolutions. It’s a valuable reminder that in the face of setbacks, we have the opportunity to become players, not victims, and reshape our outcomes.

Are you ready to embrace the inevitability of breakdowns and turn them into your stepping stones to success?

If you would like to discuss any of the topics raised in this article and learn how you can proactively navigate challenges on your journey to achieving your organization’s most ambitious goals, contact us.