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Need Solutions Not Problems - Your Mantra For 2010

Happy new year 2010. The thought for today's blog came from my experience standing in a queue of a fairly respected retail chain. The queues were long and the number of check out counters were minimal as usual ;=) ( I think a lesson in queuing theory is warranted for all retail chain outlets I think ;=) ), anyways, the line moves on and suddenly stops .. I enquire and they say that there is a system problem, I nod my head and wait on, after some time its my turn at the check out counter and the sales clerk gets a phone call ( presumably from a friend as she was smiling and talking) while I the customer was waiting ... finally I got my good paid for and went up and met the store manager who was standing there and indicated as to why he did not open more counters ... he started moaning about the workers he had and about his manager and that nobody pays attention etc etc etc and I quickly exited from the store.

That got me thinking how many of us encourage our teams to come to us with solutions and not problems ?

It is incredibly easy and fun to moan about management or about your boss or about the work environment etc and I think it becomes a habit ... we cannot stop people from moaning but we can insist that they come up with solutions for the causes of the moaning .....

The Iron Lady of England Margaret Thatcher had said " Bring Me Solutions, Not Problems" ... do we do that ? if we do that, do we lose our "value" in the organization ? These are thoughts I am sure some of us would have ....

Teaching our teams to approach us with solutions rather than problems is a sure fire way of inculcating planning, foresight and lateral thinking traits, it is also a sure fire way to build up the power of ideation in the team and build a good, effective team.

One of my managers used to ask me not to come with the problem but share only the solution and she would try to guess the problem and it soon became almost like a game with the senior leadership team.

Asking for solutions than problems also helps the time constrained manager focus on the positives of the job ( exploring solutions) than the troubles ( problems) around the job. take a look around, there are enough problems, why do we need more ?

We need to let go of the trouble shooter image and instead allow the monkey to rest on the team's shoulders.

Happy new year and happy solution finding ....;=)



Comments

Unknown said…
"solutions are mere adjustments created in the problem"
A teacher had told us this in my 8th grade and till date i have never really been able to agree, or agree to disagree to the same. Would like to know ur take on this:)
P.S: I really like the game u and ur team lead used to play. Very interesting concept:)
January 12, 2010 at 2:18 AM
SF49ers said…
I have been out of action for a while due to many reasons ( primary being that I was lazy).. I'm not so sure solutions can be adjustments in the problem since to derive a solution you need to be at a higher level of thinking than that of the problem, so in that sense, I dont agree with that definition of a solution ...
March 1, 2012 at 10:06 PM
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