Last night my husband and I enjoyed watching the first episode of Mad Men. For those of you who don’t know, this series is set in the highly competitive world of Madison Avenue advertising in the early 60’s – run primarily by men (thus the title – “Mad” for Madison, and “Men” for….well, Men).
The lead character is Don Draper, in a predicament about a major cigarette account. He’s having a tough time finding a creative way to advertise smoking when the Attorney General has come out with an announcement that cigarettes are responsible for a fatal disease (called lung cancer). How do you advertise cigarettes and get the customer interested in purchasing something that can kill you? Don was stuck (but got lucky with an idea at the spur of the moment as the client was angrily walking out the door of the ad agency).
We American business leaders are a proud and independent people; we expect to be able to figure stuff out for ourselves. When we’re stuck, we believe in pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, dusting ourselves off, and carrying on.
Sometimes though, a leader really gets stuck, and doesn’t see a way out. We all occasionally get into a spot where the path to unstuck-ness eludes us. We just can’t see that first step that is necessary to move beyond whatever barriers are in our way (p.s., sometimes the barrier is ourselves!). And we’re often too proud to ask for help.
There are several ways to find insight into that first step. Once you are willing to admit that the answers aren’t coming to you without help, consider the following:
Ask a “stakeholder”: who can you request some assistance from? Consider your mentor, your manager, your peer, your employee, your friend or your coach. How about a customer? Depending on the nature of your stuck-ness, one or more of these might be appropriate.
Find a support organization within your company: Human resources, the strategic planning department, organizational development, and IT are a few of the possible resources that might help with specific issues.
Take a time out: When you aren’t under the immediate pressure of time, it often helps to let things simmer. A time out, up to an including a real vacation away from the office (sans Blackberry!) can help many of us to come up with ideas that get us beyond stuck.
Every single one of these ideas requires us to admit that we don’t have all of the answers. All three of them require the assistance of others (even the third one requires others to fill in for us when we’re out of the office).
Many of us need the assistance of our own ongoing “board of directors” to help us think through things on a regular basis. I belong to two Mastermind groups – one with colleagues who do what I do, one with colleagues who do different things. They both serve a purpose, and I need them both to get unstuck at times.
So I’m curious. What’s worked for you to become unstuck?
