Why Discovery Is the Key to Leveling Up at Work

Welcome to 2022! What’s your take on the “new year, new me” approach to kicking off the new year? Personally, I’m not a fan. I was pretty fond of the old me. So, I’m more of a “new year, new ideas” kind of person. It’s a less compelling bumper sticker, but I think the focus on renewed creativity over renewed humanity is the way to go.

 

If you’re on the hunt for a fresh take on approaching your work this year, then I’d love to share a beloved secret weapon with you: using a discovery process to define and drive your best work.

 

Discovery is a key phase in any consulting engagement, and yet I think it’s one of the most underused and undervalued levers you can pull as an organizational insider.

 

So let’s talk today about what discovery is, what makes it so critical, and how you can make it work for you!

What is Discovery?

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” 

 

In the workplace, we are so enamored of solutions. We love doing, implementing, and delivering. In fact, we’re so enamored of execution that we often miss out on the magic that Einstein is pointing to.

 

Having clarity around what problem we’re actually trying to solve enables us to be much better solvers of problems and deliverers of solutions. 

 

The act of getting to this clarity—of spending those 55 minutes of your hour defining the problem—is what consultants call discovery. It’s the phase of an engagement during which our magic is in asking, listening, and probing. Its goals are simply alignment and clarity.

The Antidote to Workplace Hustle Culture

Why is discovery so essential?

When I was still working in Human Resources, I’d get a call every other week from a leader insisting they needed more money to offer a member of their team who was planning to leave the company.

 

And yet when I’d talk to said team member, their reason for leaving was almost never money. They were planning to leave due to poor leadership or insufficient room for growth, or a million other things. But almost never money.

 

In other words, money was a solution to a different problem. 

 

Doing our best work doesn’t come from designing the shiniest solutions, but rather the most relevant and practical—the ones that will actually solve our problem.

 

Discovery is the upfront work...

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