I sat back. Roy sat back. “In what way can I challenge their thinking without telling them they are wrong,” he repeated, to himself.

“Well?” I waited.

“Okay, I guess I could ask them questions about how they arrived at their conclusion.”

“And what else?” I prodded.

“You mean you want me to think of more ways to challenge them?” Roy chided.

“Sure. What if the first way doesn’t work? You are a manager. You need more than one way to move your team.”

It took another ten minutes, but here is the list Roy came up with.

“I can ask them –

• What they saw that led them to that solution?
• What they heard that led them to that solution?
• To describe the impact of their solution after a week?
• To go away and come back with three other alternative solutions?
• If their solution solves the real problem or only a symptom of the problem?
• What is the underlying cause of the problem we are trying to solve?

There are many ways to bring value to your team. The most effective is by asking questions that move them to solve problems in different ways.

“How do I best explain it?” asked Glenn. “I need the team to meet the output goals, but be efficient while they are doing it.”

“Let’s start with a different explanation,” I replied. “You sound as if, meeting output goals, and being efficient, work against each other.”

“I did?” Curtis pushed back.

“Yes, you said, meet output goals, but be efficient. You are trying to balance one against the other, as if it is win-lose or lose-win.”

Glenn’s attention was focused, so I continued.

“You want to meet output goals, and be efficient. It’s not one or the other. You can have both. In fact, the more efficient the production, the more the output. Instead of using the word but, replace it with the word and.”

Often, the solution to a problem emerges not from choosing between ideas, but combining ideas. Explaining the difference can be as simple as replacing a word.

“What could you have done to test him before the promotion?” I asked.

“Before the promotion? But it wasn’t his job before the promotion.” Gerald protested.

“That’s the point of testing. Find a task with a longer Time Span and test him. Test him before the promotion.”

Gerald was thinking. “Okay, here’s a task we gave him after the promotion. Fuel prices are up. We need some solution to get fuel prices down. We need someone to look at the way we purchase fuel and come up with a better system.”

I stopped him. “What is the Time Span associated with this task?”

“We are not looking for a quick fix, in fact, his quick fix cost us more money. He looked at the internet every night for the lowest fuel prices, had his guys show up fifteen minutes early everyday so they could drive there. Often, it was a little out of the way. But the price on the pump was cheaper.

“That’s what I mean. He is a great scrambler,” Gerald continued. “I know he searched every night and indeed came up with the lowest price.”

“What was the problem?”

“It was a Supervisor’s solution. Actually cost us more money. Every day kicked in 15 minutes of overtime per driver and the extra distance to the pump burned more fuel than the savings.”

“This is the third meeting we have had,” Derek explained. “We just aren’t making any headway and the deadline is coming up fast. I thought this would be an easy problem to solve, but it’s not.”

“So, who do you have on the project team?” I asked.

“My best people, all seasoned vets at this game, but this problem has got them stumped.”

“Why do you think they are stumped?”

“I don’t know. This was a system they put together. They know all the ins and outs. They know the limitations of the system. It’s almost like they have a mental block.”

“Have you thought about putting Miguel on the team, even on a temporary basis?” I ventured.

“Miguel? Why Miguel? He has only been here for two weeks and hardly knows our system at all,” protested Derek.

“Exactly! Did you ever consider that the thinking that designed this system, that the thinking that created this problem will not be the thinking that solves this problem?” -TF