Tag Archives: problem solving

Tasks vs Decisions

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“But, it seems to me, that accountability is already fixed,” I replied. “The manager makes the decisions and the team member carries it out. Isn’t that the pervasive understanding for everyone?”

“You might think that, but you would be mistaken,” Pablo ventured. “For a company to grow, it cannot be so. If the manager makes all the decisions, eventually, what happens to the speed of decision making?”

“Well, it begins to slow down,” I observed.

“Or stops, when the manager becomes overwhelmed with all the decisions. As the organization grows, there are too many decisions to be made by one person.”

“And?” I prompted.

“For the organization to grow, the manager has to delegate,” Pablo flatly stated.

“But, every manager already knows they have to delegate, happens all the time,” I said.

“No, every manager knows they have to delegate, and they think, what they have to delegate are task assignments. In the delegation of a task, the manager also has to delegate appropriate decision making along with the task.”

“But, shouldn’t the manager reserve the authority for the decisions to be made?” I wanted to know.

“Only, if the manager wants to slow things down, or bring things to a crashing halt,” Pablo chuckled.  “Appropriate decision making has to be delegated along with the task assignment. Most managers, at the end of a delegation meeting, ask ‘Do you understand what to do?’ A more relevant question would be ‘As you work through this task, what decisions do you have to make?’ Every level of work has appropriate decision making.”

“Well, that should get some things off the manager’s plate,” I said.

“Not exactly,” Pablo had a hint of a smirk on his face. “You see, the manager is still accountable for the output of the team member. If the team member underperforms or fails, it is the manager who is accountable. And that changes everything.”

A New Management Technique

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“I found a new management technique,” beamed Mackenzie.

“I’ll bite,” I smiled. “What is it?”

“Fix it,” she replied. “Whenever someone comes to me with a problem, I should just say “Fix it!'”

“Okay, that does shift accountability in the direction of the team member, but it doesn’t give them much to work with.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mackenzie shot back. “It’s up to them to figure it out.”

“Take this piece of paper and this pencil,” I said. “Draw a picture.”

“Draw a picture of what?” Mackenzie was puzzled.

“Exactly. You are going to sputter around and finally come up with something without any shape or form related to the instruction. It’s not what I had in mind.” I paused.

“But if I said draw something that is round, gave you just enough structure, your efforts would be faster and on point. I will still get plenty of alternative variation. Round like a ball or round like a coin? As big as a planet or as small as a marble? Smooth surface or textured surface? Hard like a rock or pliable like a balloon?”

“So, ‘fix it’ isn’t helpful?” she relented.

“You want the team to solve the problem, but they will solve it faster and generate more alternatives if you give them a structure –
What is the problem?
What is the cause of the problem?
What are the alternative solutions?
What is the best solution?”

What is Possible?

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“I just finished the org chart for my team,” Kayden announced, holding up a piece of paper with circles and arrows.

“I see that,” I replied. “Why do you think an org chart is important? It’s only a small team, 18 production people and two supervisors, then there is you.”

“You said it was important, remember?” Kayden was quick to respond.

I nodded. “Yes, I did. But, do you remember why?”

“So people will know who to report to,” he followed my nod.

“So, you think you were made manager so people could report to you?” I asked.

“Well, it does sound a little arrogant.”

“What is organizational structure?” I pressed. “I mean, we draw boxes on a page and connect them with lines. What does it all mean?”

“The lines connect people that work together,” Kayden floated.

“So, what? They work together. What do the lines mean? Look at your chart. Most of the lines are vertical and are connected to a supervisor or connected to you? What do the lines mean?”

“It’s the way we define the working relationships between people,” Kayden finally stammered.

“Now, we are getting somewhere. An org chart defines the working relationships between people. And, we have to forge the kind of relationships that move the company forward, with respect to these two things – Accountability and Authority. In every working relationship, who is accountable for what? And, in every working relationship, who has the authority to make decisions? The right working relationships determine what can be done, what is possible. The not-right working relationships lead us into counter-productive activity and thwart what is possible. That’s why an org chart helps us understand those working relationships.”

Who Owns the Problem?

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“Why the long face?” I asked.

Meredith looked up. “I’m a bit overwhelmed,” she replied. “Ever since my promotion to manager, I can feel the pressure tightening around my head.”

“How so?” I prompted.

“My team runs into situations they can’t solve. One of two things happen. They either freeze and do nothing about the problem, or they line up outside my door where the problem lands on my desk.”

“Isn’t that why we pay you the big bucks?” I nudged.

“It’s not funny. It’s stressful. And, I feel like my manager is watching me to see if I can pick up the slack.”

“Details?” I wanted to know.

“Most of the problems are self-inflicted,” Meredith explained. “The team gets behind because someone was late to work. Or the work cell shuts down because we run out of a raw material with a one-week lead time. Or the schedule gets delayed because a necessary machine goes off-line for preventive maintenance. If it’s not one thing, it’s something else.”

“And, this causes you stress?” I pressed.

“Of course. I am supposed to fix it, but most of these things should never happen in the first place.”

“As you look at each situation,” I nodded, “can you identify a person, other than you, who should more appropriately own the problem?”

“But, I’m the manager,” Meredith pushed back.

“Did you ever consider that everyone on your team owns the problem, and they are simply engaging in behavior to shirk that responsibility? And, I am looking for more than individual competence, I am looking for organizational competence. It is not enough to have individually competent players, they must work together as a team. Whose problem is it when a team member is late for work? The problem may be created by one person, but the whole team bears the brunt of the problem. You accept responsibility for the fix, when it’s a team problem.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Meredith pleaded.

“You sound like your team members lined up outside your office,” I smiled. “You want my advice, my guidance and direction, but, this is not my problem to solve, this is yours. So tell me, what could you do differently so the solution is distributed to those most affected, who more appropriately should own the problem?”

Illusion of Control

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“You say that the best on your team, given a wrinkle, a bump or a calamity simply make it go away,” I nodded. “But, you said, you only had a precious few. What makes the difference?”

“When I first started out as a manager, I thought I was in control,” Madison started. “I thought I was the one who brilliantly solved all the hard problems. I thought I was the one who made all the hard decisions.”

“And?”

“My first realization is that control is simply an illusion. I was never in control,” she replied. “Oh, I could plan, I could train my team in our best practices. I could speed up our output, increase our quality standards, but I was never in control.”

“What was the lesson and how did it arrive in your lap?” I asked.

“Easy,” Madison replied. “The harder I tried to control, the worse things got. Even things like pace. I would try to control the pace, increase the rate of output, but the more I leaned in, the slower things got. I would see someone on the team do something stupid, so I would take away their authority to do it. So, instead of leaping on a problem, the team would hang out waiting for me to solve it. It was definitely passive-aggressive on their part, but I am the one who created the monster.”

“So, what was the tipping point?” I wanted to know.

“One day, everything stopped,” she said. “We ran out of a raw material and production ground to a halt. I was out visiting a customer, so I didn’t find out until the next morning.”

“No one thought to call you?”

“They were scared to call me. I was such a control freak. Bottom line, we had more material received on our shipping dock, but the paperwork hadn’t been processed, so no one dared open the crate.”

“And so you yelled at them?” I laughed.

“That’s when I realized I had to delegate. And, I don’t mean delegate in the classic sense of getting stuff off my plate. I mean delegate decision making. I got the team together and asked what would have solved the problem and kept the line going? Two people raised their hands with suggestions. I gave those two people expressed authority to open an unprocessed crate.”

“But, wouldn’t you lose control of inventory on hand?” I pressed.

“For an afternoon,” Madison was clear. “Our Bill of Materials system would have backed into the number based on finished assemblies, we could reconcile with the paperwork that would eventually be processed and we would not have lost an entire afternoon of production. More importantly, I now had two people on my team who could make the decision without me. Forever.”

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.”