Any Solution To A Problem Is Always Driven By How A Problem Is Defined – Interview With Michael Cook
Michael Cook is a leading thinker on how to get out of the weeds of what you do, and into the realm of creating what you want to happen. So why 80/20? The pace of life, not just business, means that we rarely spend the time building a plan, a strategy of how to get to where we are headed. And for understandable reasons. Our desks get filled with the now, whether urgent issues, other people’s problems or simply the habits we’ve grown accustomed to and which is probably the combination of same. Naturally this leads us into reactive mode, rather that the proactivity we need to avoid future issues, build the relationships we need and influence those we need to. His clients are those who see the value in that.
Michael Cook, Bringing 80/20 thinking to your business
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Michael Cook is the founder of The 80/20 Business Consultancy. He has more than 30 years in business and has enjoyed 2 careers. He has worked right across the globe, both as an expatriate in Asia and the US as a C-suite executive for a multinational, as well as building a second career as an international business coach and consultant. Based in the UK, he has a grown-up family and enjoys following sports as well as international global affairs. His most annoying trait is a love of newspapers! What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
The 80/20 Business Consultancy are a small and savvy business team, with experience to know that 80% of success comes from just a small, often hidden, part of what needs doing. And the skills to help you identify what these are, and then execute them.
Clients face this more now than ever. Simply because the range of pressures demanding their time is so wide. Yet while often urgent they are rarely that important. Finding time for a reset, and the strategic rethink necessary, becomes elusive, not least because it is hard to know where to start.
This is where we help.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
We speak to, and work with business owners, or anyone with responsibility for the success of an important area of their company’s business.
What is your work inspired by?
I’m inspired most by 2 thoughts. First, the idea that if we allow it, we are so often the architects of our own misery by constantly creating expectations of others that we have no control over whatsoever. And secondly, that conflict is only ever a state of being. And as there is only ever one moment, the moment we are in, we can so easily choose to move from being in conflict to one of ‘solution finding’ if we choose. The choice is always ours. If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
At its heart, our industry delivers when it can encourage people to think about things differently. When we can open our mind to the possibility at least of another view existing. One that can then lead to another solution. For after all, any solution to a problem is always driven by how a problem is defined. And so often that is where the issue lies, the definition. It’s a simple message yet one that so often gets overlooked.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
20 years ago, I was fortunate to attend a series of programs in London run by the Landmark Forum. The experience was profound beyond words and has led to where I am today.
