Integrative Business Solutions

Wouldn't it be great if there was just one definitive answer to every problem or challenge in life? Just think how much easier it would all be.

The first challenge, however, is there isn't one solution - there's many solutions. Also the solution that works for one person, team or business wont necessarily work for another and vice verse. I'd also suggest that what solution works for them today won't necessarily work in a month's time. The key, therefore, has to be how to access the right solution for that situation and for today.

Find someone who knows - ask them - is often one of the things we try. Yet having spoken to a handful and more of 'specialists' about my knee I realise that what we get is what their specialist area would proclaim to be the solution. The solutions offered for my painful, troublesome, inflexible and apparently arthritic knee have included:

• a new knee
• a realigned knee
• injections in the knee
• pain killers
• weight loss
• special shoes
• insoles
• specific exercises
• cutting out certain foods - e.g. wheat
• eating more of other foods
• digestive enzymes
• herbs
• releasing the fear
• being me

No one 'specialist' was able to offer all these potential solutions - I had to ask questions of many specialists and assimilate my own list of potential solutions. My arthritis Pinterest board is a testament to how many different solutions there are to consider.

With my knee I'd suggest the answer lies in a number of these:

The pain killers work in the short term and enable me to exercise the knee to strengthen the muscles that have become weakened with pain. These strengthened muscles can then be trained to work more effectively by more and yet different exercises using those specialist shoes to take the weight away from the grinding bones whilst doing so. Weight loss will help that too. Taking potentially inflammatory foods out of the diet and putting more anti inflammatory ones in will help the body to heal that area more easily. The digestive enzymes will help me digest the food more easily to ensure the minerals I digest are available for use in the repair of my knees. Releasing the fear and being me will stop my constant doing and tightening of the muscles that stop the knee doing what knees do. When the digestive system is working more effectively the foods I took out or foods, herbs and enzymes put in will need to be revised. So too the exercise regime needed to continue to allow the knee to strengthen and repair. All solutions working together to avoid the dreaded solution of a new knee! All solutions working together so that I may continue to be Auntie Alison who cartwheels and jumps on the trampoline not one in the corner watching it all going on around her!

Isn't it the same in business? Short term fixes will only work if more long term solutions are implemented to ensure more healthy systems, processes, procedures and ways of working are utilised and embraced. A new process wont work if it's not aligned with the values of the business or beliefs continue to be held that "it's not how things are done around here." Success will be tantalisingly out of reach without communication and engagement with internal and/or external stakeholders. Not forgetting the impact a healthy environment, both within and outside of work, will have on the individuals making the changes.

With both examples the journey has many twists and turns. Solutions used in the early days fall away as the conditions for new solutions to be tried arise. It requires a constant assessment of the impact of the ripples arising from the actions - with new and different solutions used to tweak and gently bring the person, team, project or business back into healthy alignment with their goals.

What do you need to change to ensure you embrace a more integrative approach to finding solutions to your problems? Me - I'll be writing more blogs on this subject over coming weeks.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds for integrative solutions for purchasing

Ripples in the water picture source: mindbodycounseling.com via Alison on Pinterest