What to Do When There’s No Easy Fix.

What to Do When There’s No Easy Fix.

—This week on the SPARKED Podcast—

It happens to the best of us, as individuals, teams, and even entire organizations. 

We hit a moment where a challenge becomes a quagmire, and there’s just no easy fix. No conventional approach, process, or system that’s going to get you to the other side. When complex problems arise in our personal lives, workplaces, and society, it can leave us feeling stumped and overwhelmed. Even if we have all the resources in the world (which we rarely do).

Still, you’ve got to find a way through. Especially when the stakes are high and giving up or walking away will have major repercussions.

Enter the “workaround.”

For years, large corporations have been teaching small businesses and non-profit organizations how to get things done. However, it turns out, in the toughest moments, small, scrappy, under-resourced groups, teams and individuals have much to teach us about creative problem-solving and overcoming adversity.

In this week’s episode of SPARKED, we welcome expert guide, Paulo Savaget , who has been studying the power of small groups that generate game-changing workarounds, as he writes about in his new book, The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems.

As an associate professor at the University of Oxford's Department of Engineering Science and Saïd Business School, Savaget has a background working as a researcher, consultant, and entrepreneur, finding innovative solutions for a more inclusive world. He defines workarounds as alternative solutions to complex problems that may not be optimal but can still get the job done, classifying into four types:

  1. The Piggyback: capitalizes on pre-existing but seemingly unrelated systems or relationships.
  2. The Loophole: relies on selectively applying or reinterpreting the rules that traditionally define a situation.
  3. The Roundabout: disrupts or disturbs self-reinforcing behavior patterns.
  4. The Next Best: repurposes or recombines readily available resources in order to find different ways to get things done.

Savaget asserts that scrappy startups and small businesses draw upon a level of courage and an experimental mindset that allows them to think creatively and find solutions that others may not have considered.

We dive into all four workarounds, what they are, and when to deploy each in this week’s SPARKED podcast. You'll also learn how workarounds can be implemented in your personal and professional life to achieve success.

To learn your Sparketype, check out the free Sparketype® Assessment.

AND - if you'd like to submit your own questions for consideration for a future episode of SPARKED, you can do it here now.

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Could you use a new approach to how you think about work and productivity?

The world of work and business has taken many twists and turns, especially these days. So I think it's only natural that, even now, a lot of us are still reevaluating our work life and exactly what we want it to look like. And luckily, you and I aren't alone in our questions and search for answers.

This week, we're sharing some ideas below that might help spark new ways to engage at work, reshape how you view productivity, and more. So we hope you find these resources as helpful as we did — read on below!

5 ways to feel like you're doing enough. Do you ever feel like no matter what you do or how much you get done, you're never doing quite enough? Especially when you start comparing yourself to the next person, it's easy to wound up in a place of self-judgment. So learn five strategies to replace your sense of shame with self-approval from the author of The Self-Talk Workout, Rachel Turow.

"What should I do today?" Nine new things to try. A productive day at home to you might look like tackling all your chores or finally getting around to your taxes. But, sometimes, it's the daily choices that might seem the most impractical, like taking a nap, that make the biggest impact on getting you where you want to go in the grand scheme of things. See what we mean and discover nine new ways to rethink productivity in this article.

4 ways to manage your energy more effectively. When working towards a deadline or a big goal, it's natural to lose some of that initial steam that once fueled your drive. But there are ways to muster up some of that energy and motivation again so you can finish strong, so dive into this guide to learn four ways to beat burnout before it arrives.

How to cultivate emotional intelligence as a strategic leader. Emotional intelligence hasn't fallen down the totem pole as one of the most highly-valued skills in the workplace. And learning how to cultivate it and incorporate it into your leadership style can benefit the culture of your work environment and everyone within it. In this article, discover the five pillars of emotional intelligence and valuable strategies for promoting it at work.

—Let’s Stay Connected—

To stay up to date on the powerful conversations and insights on the SPARKED Podcast, along with our curated resources and tips, be sure to subscribe to the SPARKED newsletter here on LinkedIn.

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