To think "how to not to do it myself: To find as many alternatives as possible as options for making decision. The alternatives are not necessarily to be new ideas, but are multiple choices for me to compare and choose from.
When I mean creative in business options, I mean "how can we EMPOWER and ENABLE the OTHERS to provide what we want or we need?" The following options are my examples when I mean "empowering and enabling the others":
to produce the goods for me?
- to collect the data for me?
- to analyze the collected data for me?
- to do marketing for me?
- to do selling for me?
- to deliver the goods for me?
- to collect money from the customer for me?
- to manage my information system for me?
- to manage my projects for me?
- to manage my suppliers for me?
- to obtain other sources of financial funding for me?
- to identify good investments for me?
- to generate income from the investments for me?
- ...
Now, most of the activities in business are not owned or performed by in-house resources. Most of them are through services provided by other parties. I call this as partnership-oriented business nature which is different from the Chinaman's business nature. The Chinaman's business nature is always related to "one leg kick", "all in one" and "one for all". When we are talking about partnership-oriented business, we are talking about "work together" with others! As PM job is very heavily relying on others, we should always think in "partnership" model!
When you are open for ideas, not emotional, not biased then you may have more choices. When you have more choices doesn't mean you should simply choose one from the options. The final decision has to be made based on certain basis and calculation.
