Navigating the Resources
1. Read the information below about the trait to develop a greater understanding of your strength/opportunity.
2. Consider the Stop, Start, Continue examples to create your own actionable change behaviors.
3. Explore the trait more fully by taking advantage of the weblinks below.
Practical Problem Solving
(Practical Thinking, Common Sense, Realistic Thinking)
Practical problem solving measures the extent to which you employ a pragmatic approach to problem solving and decision making. The resources below should provide you with the steps for increasing or decreasing your level of practical problem solving.
Strength
Higher levels of practical problem solving indicate you may employ a logical and pragmatic approach to planning and problem solving.
Opportunity
Lower levels of practical problem solving indicate you may have a wishful thinking style and favor abstract ideas that are difficult to implement.
Excess
Excessive levels of practical problem solving indicate you may be too concrete or miss subtle communications.
Identify an opportunity area that you would like to change. Then, develop behaviors that you can Stop (unhelpful or limiting behaviors), Start (behaviors that you can begin now), and Continue (behaviors that you already do well) to improve in this area. Use the examples below to help create your own Stop, Start, and Continue behaviors.
- Allowing far-fetched ideas to impact productivity.
- Generating solutions without a practical timeline.
- Spending excess time on ideas that are not workable.
- Considering the least creative idea possible for solving the problems.
- Looking back at previous tasks and projects to accurately estimate.
- Thinking through solutions that can be implemented immediately and seek the advice of other successful decision makers.
- Exploring a few novel ideas.
- Identifying first steps to tackle the issue.
- Critically thinking through difficult problems.
