If you are a business leader looking to foster positive workplace culture, enhance team effectiveness and navigate challenges effectively while focusing on strategic objectives or if you just want to make work work better, then join us for today's mini workshop where we share three things you can do today to encourage employees to consistently provide possible solutions to problems they encounter without prompting. The problem you might be experiencing might be something like this.
Pointing out a problem without a solution is just complaining or making the person who pointed out part of the problem. You don't want a culture of whining or complaining, but you do want a culture where people feel free to share feedback and offer suggestions and point out problems. You want a culture where people are empowered to find solutions to problems and implement those actions, or take them to those who can.
The best kind of problem is one that is solved by the first person to discover it. Let me give you an example. Sometimes running a business is like trying to keep your house clean. For example, say someone tracks mud in the house. And everyone's pointing to it and saying, oh, there's mud over there, there's mud. It's going to get all over the place, but no one does anything about it. Does that sound familiar?
Ideally, you would want your teams empowered to see the proverbial mud on the floor and clean it up before you even noticed it was there. And a new system in place to prevent mud being tracked through the house in the future. So there's a few key points to this. One, The return and report principle. That is you want to train your people. Now when they're giving you an assignment or they're given a responsibility, it is then their job to complete that and then report back to you.
Not wait for you to hunt them down and ask and see what happened Second is to train your employees and make it a habit yourself that when you point out a problem, you then present a few solutions. Those solutions never have to be the one you actually go with. If an employee says, I don't know, then do like, well, what would you think if you were the only one that could do this? What would you choose to do? And see what they have to say.
It doesn't mean you have to listen to their suggestion either. What it does do is it empowers people to not get in the mindset that they don't have options, that it's someone else's problem, and that they can't come up with solutions on their own. You want an empowered employee culture. Here's three things you can do today. First, create solution oriented feedback channels.
This might be a place where people can report through a suggestion box, an online platform, regular team meetings on problems and where immediately they then present solutions. And you open to an entire group where everyone can then start trying to troubleshoot. And then the responsible party can make a decision on which which option you choose.
Ensure that these channels are easy to access, recognize and reward employees who contribute solutions, whether through public acknowledgment, incentives or incorporating their ideas into action plans to reinforce the importance of proactive problem solving. Make it a company policy that if you present a problem, you need to present a solution. It doesn't have to be a good solution. It has to be your best solution possible.
Create a culture where it is safe and encouraged to ask for help and input. Second, empowerment and ownership culture - foster a culture where employees feel empowered and responsible for finding solutions to problems they encounter. This can be achieved by giving employees more autonomy and decision making authority in their roles, and encourage managers to support their teams, and taking ownership of issues and experimenting with solutions. Micromanaging is the opposite of empowerment culture.
Accountability is essential. Micromanaging is not. What this means is sometimes managers and executives need to allow their employees the freedom to fail and to make mistakes. You might think, but that's not acceptable. Isn't that the opposite of excellence culture? My answer be absolutely not. That is a crucial step to excellence culture. Where that becomes a problem.
Is if those behaviors continue and aren't improved upon, aren't changed, or aren't followed, then that becomes tolerating poor performance and behavior that is not acceptable. Mistakes are fine if progress follows. We would love to come work with you and provide training on problem solving techniques and creative thinking to equip your employees with necessary skills and confidence to address the challenges. We would love to get to work with you.
The third thing you can do today is to create solution driven meetings. Reframe regular meetings to be solution driven by setting aside time specifically for discussing problems and potential solutions. Implement a problem solution segment and team meetings where employees are encouraged to present any challenges they face along with their suggested solutions.
Encourage a collaborative approach where team members can build on each other's ideas and ensure that these discussions are constructive and focused on finding actionable outcomes. Lead by example by actively participating in these sessions and demonstrating a positive, solution oriented mindset. One of the best things you can do on this note, create a “Yes, and...” culture.
It doesn't mean we have to agree with anything, but when we are in brainstorming, solution finding, or open discussion type of meetings where we're exploring options that the word should always be “Yes, and...” and you should avoid the word “but” like the plague. Why? “Yes, and...” encourages someone to acknowledge someone else's idea and then build on it or offer a new direction to take things.
The word “but” immediately negates the original person's idea and creates this sense of competition and conflict that is counter to innovation and collaboration. These three tips, will help you start to learn how to train your employees to offer solutions. Instead of just pointing out problems.
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