Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, even Shaggy and Scooby Doo (okay, maybe their crew and not them)…what do they all have in common? Is it a mystery?
It is not! They are all detectives in their own right. Yes they are all fictional. I’m sure you could name a dozen more characters who do what they do. House comes to mind on the medical front, as does Matlock on the legal front.
Vocation
But what do they all do? Solve mysteries. How do they do it? By following the clues. What you don’t hear from them are things like this:
Yeah we found a bloody dagger two paces away from a driver’s license. We discarded them.
The glass was full of finger prints and smelled funny. We put it aside.
We recognized a behavioral pattern in each of the murders. How weird is that?
No! What you would normally have, in almost cartoonish parlance, is someone exclaiming, “That’s a clue!”. What do you do with clues? You follow them to where they lead you. Sometimes they might lead to a dead end. Other times they may lead to another clue. Some are the end result you were looking for and enable you to solve the mystery.
Circling But Not Landing
Problem solving can feel like a mystery at times. Whether you are dealing with organizational dynamics or a technical issue, clues are provided. Some are helpful, some are not. The question is, how do you know?
What you don’t do is what I call the “circling but not landing” problem. That’s where you amass potential clues and congratulate yourself on all the clues you found, but do not pursue any of them to determine if they are a dead end or vital to solving your problem.
A former technical employee of mine did this exact thing. She was assigned an issue for a system that she knew in a language in which she was proficient. Instead of seeing a path (a clue) to its conclusion, she set about looking for other clues. She never closed off any paths, and therefore, never solved the problem. (Hint: process of elimination is your friend, not your enemy.) Unfortunately, this employee learned she was better suited for another line of work.
Your Worth Is Not a Mystery
The more problems you can solve and the growth in complexity of the types of problems you can solve contribute to your value in business. Talent is one thing. Desire is another. Resourcefulness is key. And an obsession with solving mysteries goes a long way.
Don’t be that person who circles but doesn’t land. Be a good detective: when you find a clue, pursue it to its end. If it leads to a dead end, at least you know that clue no longer matters. But you still have others to help you solve the mystery.