The Natural Law of DISCOVERY

Help others discover their own solutions!

Okay, so most of the time I find this law useful in the workplace, but I want to share a way you can use it to make your personal relationships more effective. Whenever I have a call scheduled with a good friend to go over something that’s been going on in his/her life, I tend to approach the call from a “discovery” lens.

No one wants to “lecture” their friends.

You know why? Because when they don’t follow our advice, we tend to get frustrated.  Even worse, we shy away from giving them advice in the future because we think to ourselves, “What’s the point?”.  So, instead of spending my time educating a friend on what I believe is the “solution” to his/her “problem”, I tend to ask questions.  Questions lead to self-discovery. What I noticed is that these methodology helps my friend discover the solution rather than having me deliver the solution.

When a solution is someone’s own idea, it tends to stick!

Conversations become productive rather than repetitive.  Because we have helped someone discover rather than just relying on us to “deliver”, the solution sticks and that person will likely not run into this roadblock again down the line.  Now you can have conversations once and not spend hours rehashing the same issues over and over again. Sounds good huh?

If you help others discover, they will rely less on you to deliver, making each of you more productive!

The Natural Law of the Discovery expresses this point clearly: People believe more in the solutions that they have discovered than the ones presented to them.  This week, ask more questions in your conversations and watch others unlock their own solutions! You will not only boost your own productivity, but theirs as well.

For more information on Natural Laws, visit www.StevenJAnderson.com.