Donald Trump on Leadership and Problem Solving

Donald Trump, in an article in Business 2.0, explains an extremely important leadership concept that relates to problem solving. In it, the Donald suggests one should "obsess About solutions, not problems. There's a lot to the credo that success breeds success. It puts you on a high that makes more success like a magnet. I'm a positive thinker who does frequent reality checks. Negatives turn into positives, problems can be solved, things can turn around. The image of success is important, but even more important is the ability to focus on solutions instead of on problems. That way, you'll never be thinking like a loser, and you probably won't look like one either." (By the way, I encourage the reader to check out the entire magazine, cover to cover, this month). This sounds so simple, but is really quite profound. This concept of focusing on the solution, and not the problem, is extremely foreign in the world of business today, in my opinion.

In the world of business, most articles in publications, most conversations between colleagues, and most board meetings focus on what is wrong. It seems, that the "smart" people in such exchanges don't offer solutions to problems, but merely more clever ways to describe them. It is difficult to focus on solutions, for several reasons.

Misery loves company. For some reason people love to spend time together discussing what's wrong, how terrible the consequences of the problem are, and how difficult it is to overcome them. When people finally start talking about solutions, eyes begin to roll and heads begin to shake, because everyone would solve the problem with a different approach, they just won't say what that would be.

People do not want to discuss solutions because of the fear that others will determine their answer simply do not cut it. It is so much easier to focus on what most people Agee on -- the problem -- than the often tough answers.

Solutions are reflections of the actual problems. When you focus on solutions, you risk being accused of not knowing the real problem because of the approach you want to take.

Remember, it isn't the critic that counts. Those who focus on solutions will be seen as leaders. When we look at crossword puzzles, we don't think of other ways of expressing the clues, but what need to be put in those little squares. We love these kind of problems, even buy them in magazines. We need to embrace this love of problem solving to the world of business, because in that arena such an ability is really quite profitable.