Bring me solutions, not problems

HOW much of your time is taken up responding to staff queries? “I’ve got this problem, can you give me some ideas?”, “Have you got a moment, I don’t know how to handle this situation?”

And because you have an open door policy and you don’t want to be seen as unapproachable, what do you do? Well, you respond, don’t you? You spend time with your employee, you go through the issue at hand, recommend a course of action and the staff member goes away satisfied, as you do – you’ve helped as requested. All’s well … apparently.

But not really. What’s happened here is that you have allowed your staff member to interrupt your time and you have created a situation where that staff member – and all other staff members, if this is your normal response mechanism – knows that when they have what they believe is an ‘issue’, all they have to do is approach you and you’ll fix it. (Thereby absolving themselves of all responsibility.)

So, for a start, you have a time management issue. Assuming that you have a set number of tasks to attend to during the course of a day, you have just said that it’s ok for people to interrupt you and that your tasks are, therefore, of secondary importance. Your task has just been relegated to a position of lesser importance than those of your employees.

So, what’s the answer? How can you be seen as a nurturing employer, but at the same time one whose tasks are very important and whose time is actually not at the whim of every employee that has an ‘issue’?

Enter the principle of ‘Bring me solutions, not problems’. Here, the employee is encouraged to do the initial thinking, so your response can be, “I’m actually in the middle of something right now, so can you come back in say, half an hour? … and, by the way, before you do, can you give some thought to your issue and maybe bring back two or three options that you believe might be ways to handle it?”

In the majority of cases, you won’t see them again – at least, not with respect to that issue. And why not? Because, they will think about it and the answer will be obvious. For so long, they’ve been relying on you to answer the question, to solve the problem and they’ve become complacent. Now you’re throwing the responsibility to find solutions back to them and they’re responding.

And if you continue along those lines, your people will begin to think more about the various issues with which they’re confronted on a day-to-day basis, and they will become more valuable employees.

There are actually some other things going on, here. Firstly, you’re giving them the freedom to make decisions. However, with that must imply the freedom to make mistakes. It’s better that you have people who are prepared to make a decision, even if it’s wrong – to a certain degree, of course – than to have people who are continually requiring you to make all of those decisions.

Secondly, if you’re never going to let them make a mistake, or a decision, for that matter, you’re saying to them (subconsciously) that you don’t trust them. And they will be taking it that way – subconsciously. Although it’s subconscious, you will be building up a culture of fear and apprehension in your workplace.

Finally, there is one more benefit from taking this approach. The employee should always be encouraged to turn the ‘issue’ at hand into a longer-lasting benefit for the company. Starting from the point where you have decided to make this change and where you have encouraged them to find their own answer, you might add, “When you’ve had a look at the options, can you also see if your response can be further developed into an alteration to our existing procedures.”

So not only are your people going to be given the freedom to make decisions (and yes, sometimes mistakes), they will be saving you time and, just maybe, adding to the systems approach you have taken for your business.

The result: fewer interruptions to your day; you becoming a more effective manager; staff are satisfied that they are trusted to make decisions; people are more satisfied with their value; and there will be improved systems in your business.

How good is that?