You know those embarrassing moments when the solution is so obvious, but you have somehow overlooked it? I had one of those moments recently. My dog decided it would be entertaining to shred both ends of a bag of potting soil and spread some of the soil around the garage. It was a brand new bag. And with both ends opened, I needed to figure out what to do with it. While it was not a priority, it would annoy me every time I looked at it. There it sat for several weeks, until I looked six or so feet past the bag to a pile of empty tubs. All I had to do was carefully pick up the bag and dump it into the tub. It was an obvious solution. And it had been there the whole time.
Many times the solution to the issue you are working in business is already there. It may be the experience of a person somewhere else in the company, or it may be right there staring you in the face waiting for you to look up. The solution presents itself when you declare the issue and are open to the solution. By doing this, it opens the conversation for the people with the knowledge to come forward. Or it shifts your focus to resolving the issue. How are you making sure you don’t miss the solutions that are right in front of you?