For my UK readers, you’ll know that yesterday was an interesting one at 3pm when the government tested a new public alert system. It appears not everybody received this alert, there may have been a typo in the Welsh version (!) and for me personally, I’m not sure where “10 seconds” came in as the audible alarm on my phone only rang for 3 seconds or so…
This UK-wide Emergency Alerts system is designed to warn us of a “life-threatening emergency nearby” which is all rather sombering…however it got me to thinking about the benefit of identifying potential or imminent threats and our roles as EAs, PAs and Administrative Professionals as key “problem solvers”.
Interestingly, five of the Top 10 skills of 2025 (according to The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report) are categorized under “Problem Solving” skills.
r my UK readers, you’ll know that yesterday was an interesting one at 3pm when the government tested a new public alert system. It appears not everybody received this alert, there may have been a typo in the Welsh version (!) and for me personally, I’m not sure where “10 seconds” came in as the audible alarm on my phone only rang for 3 seconds or so…
This UK-wide Emergency Alerts system is designed to warn us of a “life-threatening emergency nearby” which is all rather sombering…however it got me to thinking about the benefit of identifying potential or imminent threats and our roles as EAs, PAs and Administrative Professionals as key “problem solvers”.
Interestingly, five of the Top 10 skills of 2025 (according to The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report) are categorized under “Problem Solving” skills.
The Simplex Process of Problem Solving introduced by Canadian teacher and researcher, Min Basadur, encourages seeking out problems to solve too. This means you are truly embracing continuous improvement where working practices and procedures are concerned.
And, I’ve said it before and will say it again, you are in a privileged position in your roles where you see, hear and experience what’s happening in your organisation from “the shop floor” to the “the Board Room table”. You are ideally placed to notice when a threat is on the horizon and to identify where improvements can be made.
So how can you step into this role of “chief problem solver” and metaphorically “sound an alarm” when there’s a potential threat on the horizon?!
According to www.mindtools.com, whilst some problems will be obvious, others may be less so. Identifying these less obvious problems or potential threats can be achieved by using “trigger questions”, such as
What do our stakeholders want us to improve? What are they complaining about? What could they be doing better if we were to help them? What small problems do we have that could grow into bigger ones? What slows down our work or makes it more difficult? How can we improve quality? What are our competitors doing that we could do? What is frustrating and irritating to me and our team?
If you’re interested in reading more about Problem Solving, head to an archive blog post here.
Staying with the theme of Problem Solving, as learning and development specialists we want to provide YOU with solutions to YOUR problems. We need to know what problems, challenges and threats you face so that we can design and develop training solutions to assist you in overcoming these barriers.
Behind the scenes we’ve been busy working on a survey to gain this important information. This survey will be sent out later this week, so please keep an eye on your inbox.
The result of the information we gained when canvassing your inputs back in late 2020/early 2021 was the development of our Mini MBA for Senior & Executive Assistants and we know what a positive impact this Programme is having for so many of you.
We are excited at the prospect of developing new Programmes and materials that will contribute to our mission to advocate and raise the profile of this profession. Thank you so much in advance for helping us to help you!
