Suzanne surveyed the options: "Grill" (that meant burgers and fries), "Garden" (that meant salad bar), "Home" (that meant hot and boring), and "World" (today it was East Asia). She noticed that Matteo was at the salad bar, so she decided to do salad today, and headed over there with her tray.
As she reached for the lettuce tongs, Matteo nodded to her and said, "I hate salad."
Suzanne couldn't resist. "Good," she said. "More for the rest of us who hate salad."
Matteo chuckled. "So what'd you think of Lynn's idea?"
Suzanne reached for the cottage cheese spoon. "I think it might work. We have to fill in some holes, but it just might work."
"I agree," said Matteo. "She has a real gift for finding the third way."
Matteo is referring to Lynn's knack for finding a new way to look at things, to bring unity into an otherwise polarized debate. It's one of the skills of people I call Problem-Solving Ambassadors.

Benjamin Franklin, painting by David Martin, 1767. Photo courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.
In the context of dispersed or global teams, we often meet face-to-face for problem-solving sessions. To manage our travel budgets, we send delegations to these meetings, usually selected for their domain knowledge and problem-solving skills.
And this is where we sometimes err. We choose people for these meetings using the same criterion — domain expertise — that we use for the face-to-face context. Although domain knowledge and problem-solving skills are important, a new skill set is required for dispersed teams — the skills of the ambassador.
Here are some tips for finding and choosing problem-solving ambassadors.
- Negotiation skills and empathic skills are critical
- In the dispersed environment the delegations that meet must negotiate agreements that last beyond what anyone can know for certain. Agreements must be much more than technically sound — they must support the agendas of the parties well enough to make adherence the best alternative. Problem solving alone won't cut it.
- Seek balance
- Problem-solving ambassadors do have problem-solving skills, and they are well versed in the subject matter of the meeting. But they need not be the most well versed people available, because we're willing to trade off some domain knowledge and problem-solving abilities for ambassadorial skill.
- Look for them where they are
- Seek a balance
of domain knowledge
and ambassadorial skill - Where do we find problem-solving ambassadors? Because they're relatively gregarious, they're often bored by purely technical work. We find them in technical sales support, or in customer support or customer consulting. Or maybe management.
- Expect varied careers
- Because they appreciate the multiplicity of perspectives, they enjoy breadth more than depth. The paths of their careers pass through many different fields.
And most important, like the Lynn that Matteo and Suzanne were talking about, problem-solving ambassadors thrill in resolving issues between constituencies — in finding the third way. Do you know a problem-solving ambassador? Top
Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
For more about empathy and the uses of empathy, see "The Uses of Empathy," Point Lookout for January 4, 2006.
Ambassadors must be diplomats, and one of the most important skills of diplomacy is a mastery of indirectness. See "Using Indirectness at Work," Point Lookout for December 6, 2006, for more.
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Games for Meetings: II
- We spend a lot of time and emotional energy in meetings, much of it engaged in any of dozens of ritualized
games. Here's Part II of a little catalog of some of our favorites, and what we could do about them.
The True Costs of Indirectness
- Indirect communications are veiled, ambiguous, excessively diplomatic, or conveyed to people other than
the actual target. We often use indirectness to avoid confrontation or to avoid dealing with conflict.
It can be an expensive practice.
Patching Up the Cracks
- When things repeatedly "fall through the cracks," we're not doing the best we can. How can
we deal with the problem of repeatedly failing to do what we need to do? How can we patch up the cracks?
Ethical Debate at Work: II
- Outcomes of debates at work sometimes favor one party, not only at the expense of the other or others,
but also at the expense of the organization. Here's Part II of a set of guidelines for steering debates
toward wise outcomes.
Five Guidelines for Choices
- Each day we make dozens or hundreds of choices — maybe more. We make many of those choices outside
our awareness. But we can make better choices if we can recognize choice patterns that often lead to
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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 23: Microdelegation
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And on July 30: What the Dunning-Kruger Effect Actually Is
- Although the Dunning-Kruger Effect is widely recognized, people describe it — and understand it — in many different ways. Some of these expressions are misleading. Proceed with caution. Available here and by RSS on July 30.
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