Tag Archives: problem solving

The Line at Your Door

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“But, if I have the right solution to the problem, isn’t it more efficient to just get the team to do it my way?” Muriel protested.

“In the short run,” I replied. “Are you playing the short game or a long game? Are you training your team to solve problems or are you training your team to follow directions?”

“But, my manager, you know I have a manager, too?” Muriel hinted a bit of sarcasm. “My manager expects me to solve this problem, get on with the work, so we can get to the next project. My manager doesn’t care, as long as we keep moving.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “If all the problems faced by the team have to go through you, eventually what happens to the speed of problem solving? And the more you solve the team’s problems, the more they depend on you to solve their problems. Every team problem you take away, disables the team, to the point where they are helpless to solve a problem without you. Even if the problem is within their capability to solve, you create a habit, a routine grooved behavior that leads right to the line at your door, behind all the other problems that begin to stack up.”

Fear of Failure

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“When I became the manager, things changed,” Muriel answered.

“What changed?” I asked again.

“When I became the manager, I became accountable for the results of the team,” she replied. “It’s a different level of accountability. Whatever the team does, is now on my dime.”

“And, what are you afraid of?” I pressed.

“Afraid? I’m not afraid. If I was afraid, I wouldn’t have confidence in my solution,” Muriel snapped.

“What if you were afraid? What would you be afraid of?”

Muriel was not so quick to respond. “I am afraid that if the team doesn’t implement the right solution, I will be seen a failure as a manager,” she finally replied.

“Is it possible, you provided a solution to the team out of fear, rather than allow the team to struggle to find their own solution? If you could go back and do it over, what might you do differently?”

What Changed?

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“Tell me, Muriel, when your solution was challenged, how did you respond?” I asked.

“It’s pretty simple,” she replied. “I gave them the answer to the problem, but they worked in a different direction. They went directly against what I told them to do. I had to pull them together, find out who the ringleader was. You know, I have to find out who was bucking my authority.”

“Do you think the team believed in your solution?”

Muriel paused. “Does it really matter? I’m the manager. If I had the solution to the problem, they should implement it. It doesn’t matter if they believed in my solution.”

“Let’s play this out,” I prompted. “If they didn’t believe in your solution, but you forced them to implement it, how much energy and enthusiasm did they pour in your direction to prove you right? Or did they appear to follow your direction, without enthusiasm to prove you wrong? Either way, you still had a fight on your hands. Did that serve you? Did that serve the team? Did that serve the solution to the problem?”

“But!!” Muriel protested.

“No, buts,” I interrupted. “When you were part of the team, as an equal team member, how did you work together?”

“Well, back then, it was collaborative, we worked together to solve problems.”

“So, what changed when you became the manager?”

People System

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I nodded. “So, shifting things around inside your system requires that you be alert to the immediate proximity, but also for unintended consequences in a remote part of the system.”

Luke agreed. “It is easy to see when it is a defined step in the system. We can always move things around. But, I saw something else.”

“Pray tell?” I said.

“We have workflow systems,” he started. “In our workflow we can identify discreet steps that are contained. A step starts here, a step ends there. This step impacts that step and impacts another step way over here. But there is another, more complicated system I have to pay attention to. My people system puts players in proximity that have to work together. Working relationships are like steps in a system. If I change a person out, I change the working relationship. A new relationship emerges that starts from scratch and has to be built around these two questions. In this working relationship, what is the accountability for one person to the other person? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions? So, steps in a workflow are easy. People in a workflow, not so much.”

What We Know

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“But, what am I supposed to do with what I know?” Eliana prodded.

“Ask better questions,” I replied.

“Isn’t it easier just to tell the team what to do and how to do it?” she wanted to know.

“Yes, easier, for sure. But, the problems we face today were caused by what we knew yesterday. What we knew yesterday, if we stick to it, will prevent us from solving the problem today. As long as we are stuck in what we knew yesterday, we continue to be part of the problem, today.”

The Illusion of Control

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I walked by Suzanne’s office. “Why the long face?” I said.

“Ya know,” she replied, “I thought being CEO would get easier as time went by.”

“And?” I asked.

“But, it’s not. At first, it was great. I was the grand Poo-Bah. Everyone deferred to me. I could snap my fingers and a dozen people jumped. If something went wrong, I could always find someone to blame it on. Dominion over everything. Power over…”

“Go on,” I prompted.

“That was when we were small. The power had an addictive quality. Then we got bigger, things became more structured. Power gave me control, but now I think I am losing both power and control.” Suzanne got quiet.

“Nothing like a little power and the illusion of control,” I smiled.

“Easy for you to say,” she sneered. “I just don’t have the bandwidth to clamp down harder, to get things back in control.”

“Suzanne, what happens to the speed of decision making if all decisions have to go through the CEO?”

She thought, then nodded. “Slows down.”

“Or stops,” I added. “And what happens to the speed of problem solving if all problems have to be solved by the CEO?”

Suzanne picked up the pattern. “Slows down or stops.”

“And what happens to control when decision making slows down? Better or worse?”

She just nodded, pursing her lips.

“It’s counterintuitive,” I said. “The more you clamp down, the less control you have. We misunderstand this concept called delegation. We think delegation is to get some menial tasks off our plate. What we need to delegate are not tasks. What we need to delegate is decision making and problem solving. Only then will we be in greater control.”

Trouble

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“One, right after another,” Charlotte flatly stated.

“I’ll give, what?” I asked.

“We solve one problem, three more pop up. We solve one of those and three more pop up. It’s no wonder our department is so far behind goal, we’ll never catch up,” she said. “Trouble always seem to find us.”

“Trouble is mostly a mental state,” I replied. “If you are a victim of trouble, you are correct. It will always find you. Trouble either grabs you by the throat, or you grab trouble by the throat. It’s all in the way you see it.”

The Pain Inside the Problem

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“What do you mean?” Felipe wanted to know. “What do you mean, what is the problem trying to teach me?”

“Look, this is a problem that is difficult to solve. It is difficult, because what you are trying to do is difficult. You chose a difficult goal, you chose to aim high.”

“But, it is something that has to be done,” Felipe was firm.

“Yes, you determined this aim was necessary, something that must be accomplished. So, now there is a problem. If you had not set such a lofty aim, you would not have encountered such a difficult problem. People with small problems do not aim very high. Small problems are easy to solve, can even be dismissed without affecting the quest, because the quest is of little importance. But if your aim is high, and your quest is necessary, the problem will be extraordinary. The problem will come with pain.”

Felipe nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It’s painful.”

“What is the problem trying to teach you? You may not unlock the solution until you become a different person. What is the pain trying to teach you?”

The Purpose for Problems

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“I’m stumped,” Felipe groaned. “And, the worst part, I feel bad.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I’ve been struggling with this problem for more than two weeks, without resolution. And, it’s painful. I should be able to figure it out, but the problem persists. At first, I thought it was just a bump in the road, something we could fix. Then, I thought perhaps it was a fundamental assumption that we just got wrong.”

“And, now?” I prodded.

Felipe took a deep breath. “And, now? Now I feel like a failure. That maybe it’s me. That I am not cut out for this work. I was proud to get this promotion. I felt important. I barked instructions and people paid attention. Now, I just don’t know. Maybe I am an imposter?”

“We all encounter problems,” I replied. “Sometimes those problems are to be solved. Some problems can be eliminated. But, the real purpose for problems is to learn something new. What is this problem trying to teach you?”

Practice Makes Perfect

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“That was a tough one,” Cooper breathed a sigh of relief.

“How so?” I asked.

“The team was struggling with this nasty defect in a critical area of production,” he started. “It took them a while just to collect the data on what was going on, where the failure point was. Then, what to do? That’s when they pulled me in.”

“And?”

“And, I figured it out. Some of their data was defective, which threw them off the trail. Then, I had the insight that solved the dilemma.”

“So, what did you just train them to do?” I was curious.

“I showed them how to solve the problem,” Cooper said.

“No, you showed them that whenever they have a hard problem, they should collect some data, even defective data and then bring the problem to you. That somehow, you will have a brilliant insight that saves the day, and they are off the hook. Not only have you crippled the team from solving their own problems, you have taught them to practice bringing problems to you.”