Resolve frustration. Utilise expertise. Free up resources. Make change happen.

Resolve frustration, utilise expertise, free up resources, make change happen

Decision Free Solutions (DFS) is an approach to utilise all available expertise to achieve the goals you believe in. DFS’ motto: Resolve frustration, Utilise expertise, Free up resources, Make change happen. This motto can be read as a sequence of related steps, but it also refers to the different motivations an organisation may have to implement the approach of DFS.

Resolve frustration

Frustrations — the feeling of being upset as a result of something you can’t change or achieve — are very common in both our personal and professional lives. Sometimes the source of frustration lies within you, at other times they are caused by others. Either way, frustrations are deeply personal. But frustrations are also deeply revealing — what does frustration make you do?

There are those who have a hard time overcoming the feeling of being upset. Their response to frustration is to focus on the feeling itself, to perceive it as an injustice for which something or somebody can be blamed. For some the feeling of frustration stays with them their entire lives.

Then there are those who will acknowledge the feeling of being upset, and will then try to remove its cause and to resolve this frustration. For them “frustration” is not so much a mental state as it is a call to action. A heartfelt trigger to make a difference, to make meaningful change happen.

The ability to perceive your environment and a curiosity of cause and effect are prerequisites to become an expert. Because of these characteristics experts automatically develop an awareness of the interconnectedness between so many things in their everyday lives. One of the more prevalent and often easy to recognise behavioural characteristics of experts is they care.

Those who care want to help others. It is what allows them to identify and to resolve frustrations — be it their own or that of others. For many organisations the mission is to resolve frustrations, be it for their clients or to right a wrong. It may also be internal frustrations that need to be resolved, for not being able to utilise expertise, or for not succeeding in communicating it.

Those who care have an inner drive to utilise all available expertise to achieve the goals they believe in. The desire to help and to resolve frustration is a powerful drive and lies at the heart of DFS. As it is linked to expertise, it is also a de facto requirement to successfully implement DFS.

Resolving frustration is what led to the creation of the the approach of DFS. The approach of DFS empowers those who care.

Utilise expertise

We are all experts in something. Some are experts in dealing with unsatisfied customers, others are experts in in open heart surgery. They both are able to minimise risk in achieving the task at hand. We all have skills, talents, creativity and experience we love to express while achieving goals we care about. Combined with sociality — achieving goals we care about together —  it is what brings us joy.

Many of us find joy in their work, many others don’t, or only to an extent. Most organisations hire us because they need to fill a certain position. But in hiring us they hire not merely what the organisation is in need of. Whether they want it or not organisations hire all of our skills, all of our talents, our creativity and our motivations. We bring all of this to the table.

But then we may find it is not always wanted. Most organisations spend large amount of resources on directing and controlling our work — restricting the use of our expertise. When we come up with substantiated ideas we have to confront the organisation’s hierarchical decision making — and our ideas may end up being overruled, discarded or ignored without substantiation. Both of which may cause some frustration.

Organisations have to meet many challenges themselves. They have to operate and to compete in an ever more complex and dynamic environment. Organisations have to adapt. They have to set new goals and come up with new solutions to help their customers and pursue their mission.  In short, organisations are constantly exposed to new risks and have to change.

For almost all organisations both minimising risk and change are major challenges. Both minimising risk and making change happen requires creativity and resources. Creativity the organisation may not be able to unleash, resources the organisation may not have access to.

The challenges which employees and organisations face are related. In fact, they are one and the same. Frustrations can be resolved, risks minimised and change realised — through the utilisation of the organisation’s collective expertise.

The approach of DFS provides the guidelines to both identify and utilise the expertise needed to achieve a non-ambiguous desired outcome. Decision Free Solutions makes expertise matter.

Free up resources

If organisations utilise our expertise they reduce both the risk the desired outcome will not be achieved (and the resources spent would be spent in vain), and the risk that the desired outcome would be achieved, but against many more resources than necessary.

If organisations create the conditions to utilise our expertise through DFS they will begin with defining transparent and objective (measurable) desired outcomes. Identified experts will clarify to their colleagues and their managers how they will contribute to achieving these aims. In executing their plan or list of actions they will inform on progress and any deviations to the plan. In such an environment there is no need for much direction, and “assurance” takes the place of “control”. As a consequence the organisation can free up substantial resources.

If organisations utilise our expertise they improve the employee condition, which includes joy, health, motivation and loyalty. A healthier workforce which is both motivated and more loyal to the organisation automatically frees up still more resources.

In startup organisations implementing DFS will utilise expertise to achieve desired outcomes against minimal resources, and avoid spending resources pursuing desired outcomes which cannot be achieved. In existing organisations implementing DFS will result in achieving the desired outcomes against fewer resources than before. It will also free up the resources spent on direction and control, and on workplace illness and employee turnover.

Freeing up resources is often a goal or even a necessity in and of itself — to do the same or more for less. Freeing up resources can also be a requirement to be able to make change happen.

Through several pathways the approach of Decision Free Solutions frees up resources — these can both be used to improve the bottom line and to implement change.

Making change happen

Change can be many things. It can be the creation of something entirely new, it can be an ongoing adaptation to the dynamics of a marketplace or society, it can be the righting of a wrong, it can be simply a different way of doing the same thing.

Change can be driven by a desire to resolve frustrations, it can be simply a necessity, and it can be both. Whatever the change is, there will be many challenges. Change involves risk, and resources and — in the absence of belief in the change — also the overcoming of resistance.

DFS minimises risk and frees up the resources change requires — through DICE, TONNNO and the DFL-role — by utilising all available expertise in achieving the goal you and your organisation believe in.

The approach of Decision Free Solutions helps those who want to resolve frustrations and those who want to make change happen to make it happen.