At the start of my career we prepped hard before every meeting.
We were ready. At the meeting we could talk for ages about what we did and the problems we solved.
We were the experts in the room.
But something was off. Prospects nodded in agreement and then went silent when chased.
It took me a while to learn that the problem was us – we were talking too much.
**The world isn’t full of clean, well defined problems waiting for your solution.**
Instead it’s full of messy situations that people find problematic.
Take something like working out a company’s carbon emissions. That should be straightforward, right?
Well, not quite.
… one company has a system but is struggling to use it.
… another is a large global enterprise, but is structured in a complicated way.
… another has changed methods three times and now needs to stick to one.
We can’t just rush into these situations and start offering solutions.
You have to first understand what’s going on.
So we slowed down. Listened more. Took notes. Asked questions. Drew what was going on. Checked that we understood what was in people’s minds.
What works? What doesn’t? What needs fixing?
Expertise helps us build solutions.
Understanding helps us build the right solutions.
Handcrafted insight 