Author: Jag

When Someone Brings You a Problem, Ask this

It sounds easy. It looks gentle. But it changes the entire dynamic of how people approach you, how they think, and how they grow.

So what do you think you should do?

It Builds Confidence

Many people come to you with a problem because they believe your answer is better than theirs. As soon as you ask this question, you hand the thinking back to them. You let them see that their judgment matters. Confidence does not grow from outsourcing decisions. It grows from making them.

It Trains the Mind

Most problems are not solved by knowing every fact. They are solved by understanding the options, the tradeoffs, and the impact. When you ask this question, you force the person to walk through these steps. They learn to think through consequences. They learn to compare paths. They learn to slow down and choose.

It Reduces Dependence

If you answer every question, people stop thinking for themselves. If you ask them what they would do, they begin to trust their own reasoning. Over time, you spend less time firefighting and more time guiding. The person becomes someone who brings you solutions, not crises.

It Reveals Their True Concern

Sometimes the problem they share is not the real issue. When you ask what they think they should do, you uncover what they are afraid of, what they are unsure about, or where they are stuck. You hear their reasoning. You see the gap. You know exactly where to help.

It Creates Ownership

The moment someone says what they think the next step should be, they take responsibility for it. They are no longer waiting for your instruction. They are taking action. Leadership is not given. It is practiced. This question helps people practice.

One sentence that captures the idea:
When someone brings you a problem, the smartest thing you can do is ask the question that sends the thinking back to them.

Not to avoid solving, but to help them grow, to help them reason, and to help them become the kind of person who knows what to do next time.

Be Magnetic

1. Hold your position without explaining.
State your view with calm certainty and stop there. No proof. No persuasion. Your restraint signals confidence.

2. Own your flaws before others point them out.
Acknowledge one small imperfection with ease. It signals awareness and disarms criticism.

3. Slow the tempo with deliberate pauses.
Let silence work for you. A measured pause gives your words more gravity.

4. Receive good news with controlled composure.
Respond with calm satisfaction rather than visible spikes of emotion. It conveys inner stability.

5. Make requests without justifying them.
Ask directly. No long explanations. It communicates that your needs stand on their own.

6. Share less than expected.
Offer glimpses, not full stories. Mystery draws people closer than transparency.

7. End conversations while they are still strong.
Close interactions first. Leave others wanting more and remembering you at your best.

These seven habits shift your presence from reactive to intentional, from predictable to compelling, from likeable to magnetic.

The Elite Playbook

Strategy is a disciplined series of choices rooted in clear trade-offs and built on understanding both internal competencies and external competition. Strategic thinking for elite leaders requires categorically distinguishing between operational effectiveness doing things right and true strategy doing the right things.

  • Competitive positions are not found in best practices. They are created by either doing what others do, but more efficiently, or by doing what others cannot. Sustained advantage comes from this separation.
  • Core concepts anchor the discipline. “Adjacency expansion” is disciplined growth by moving into closely related markets only when supported by clear customer and economic insight. “Core competencies” are the roots—collective learning that deliver end-product differentiation and resist imitation.
  • Balanced Scorecard frames strategy execution via four key lenses—Customer, Internal, Innovation, Financial. This provides multidimensional accountability and is a strategic bridge between intention and result.
  • Disruptive innovation occurs when new entrants meet overlooked customer needs at lower cost before gradually moving upmarket. Defending requires recognizing early signals and deploying containment or absorption strategies, not just improving existing operations.
  • Blue Ocean Strategy creates new market space, making competition irrelevant by shifting boundaries and redefining consumer expectations. The alternative, “Big-Bang disruption,” quickly upends an industry by simultaneously being better and more affordable.
  • Five Forces Framework analyzes the profit structure of industries, emphasizing the competitive context—rivalry, new entrants, substitute threats, buyer power, supplier power.
  • Strategic execution is the result of countless decisions, driven by information flow, clear rights, meaningful incentives, and effective structure. The strategy-to-performance gap is closed by making strategy actionable, setting priorities, and embedding tracking and learning.
  • Portfolio approaches see strategy as a set of options, not a fixed plan—leaders make staged decisions under uncertainty, using real options reasoning and continuously deploying and withdrawing resources as volatility plays out.
  • Modern imperatives: Lean startup models favor disciplined experimentation and customer feedback over premature scaling. Platform strategies embrace external ecosystems rather than mere resource accumulation.
  • Purpose and stakeholder-centered strategies move beyond shareholders—linking competitive advantage to broader societal value and integrating purpose directly into strategy for endurance and trust.
  • Transient advantage thinking replaces the fantasy of sustained dominance with agility—amassing portfolios of short-lived advantages and scaling down as soon as the context shifts.