Guides and Rules of the Road 1334 They can be ab-solved. Then they are not your problem
any more. You hand them on to someone else or some-
one else takes them off your shoulders.
This reminds me of the joke about the man who had bor-
rowed a lot of money from his next-door neighbour and the
time was fast approaching when he had to pay him back.
With one day left to raise the money, he was frantic, but it
was impossible, he would not be able to pay. He went to bed
the night before the fateful day and tossed and turned but
could not get to sleep, he was too preoccupied. Eventually
he picked up the telephone and dialled his neighbour’s
number. The man answered.
‘Hello,’ said the first man. ‘You know that money I owe
you that’s due tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ came the guarded reply.
‘Well, I can’t pay you yet.’
And he put the telephone down.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he said to himself, ‘OK, now he
can worry about it instead.’
Leaders need to question their own beliefs and assumptions
when faced with complex problems – that means they ques-
tion all constraints, challenge all assumptions and question
the definition of the problem.
Leaders are always asking questions like:
Is this a problem at all?
What are we assuming about this problem?
How else could I think about this?
What else could this mean?
How else could this be used?
Under what circumstances would this cease to be a
problem?
What else has to be true for this to be a problem?
What are we doing to create this problem?