Diagnose the problem...

Hi-

If you didn’t get a chance to check me out, I was quoted in a big investigative piece on the ESPN website this week about the future of tickets in sports.

There were a lot of opinions and ideas in the piece. It will take you 10 or so minutes to check it out and it is worth reading if you like sports are or in the business of tickets. But the big point for today is that after the article was published, you realize from listening to people discuss the issues raised that there is a problem with the diagnosis of the issues to be dealt with.

So I wanted to spend a moment giving you three steps that I use to help folks diagnose their challenges effectively.

1. Start from a foundation of honesty:

Oy!

This is one of the big challenges I deal with. Folks don’t want to be honest with the challenge they are tackling or the situation that they are solving for.

And, I get it.

Everyone has a different perspective. Folks are often rewarded for something that made sense at one point but stopped making sense a while back.

Whatever the case at hand, a proper diagnosis begins with honesty and being able to understand what the challenge is that you are dealing with.

2. Focus on the big thing first:

Strategy before tactics.

That’s my song!

The challenge folks are dealing with in a lot of cases is that it is easy to just take action to take action. To use something fast-acting to show change without solving for the underlying issue.

But you have to fight this by making sure you go to the strategic level and figure out what the big strategic challenge you are dealing with is and take actions in a way that helps solve for the big problem.

Don’t just do things that get you moving, but act like a sugar high.

3. Reframe the issue so that you refocus attention on where you are going:

There is a tendency to fall back into old habits because there is no vision for the better future that is being targeted.

This is one of those situations where words matter.

In this case, we are talking about taking the challenge you are dealing with and flipping so you can see the opportunity and not just the challenge.

To move people through to the point where action can be taken, we have to get folks to focus on the future.

While slightly outside of the diagnosis, you want folks to take action and you do that by getting them to focus on the future.

So honesty, big to small, reframe around action…three simple steps.

I’ll talk to you next week.

Dave