Working together to find real solutions

Managers have the tendency, when helping and guiding team members, to give them the answer. However, the key to helping and guiding team members is to give them enough information to enable them to come up with the answer on their own. Here are a couple of tips to help staff members come up with solutions on their own with guidance but not answers from the manager:

1. Frame the problem: ask team members at what point in the process were they no longer able to continue and why they got stuck at that point.
2. First solution: ask team members if they tried to come up with any solutions and if they did, why it did not work out. 
3. Discuss possible solutions together: ask team members to suggest more solutions and discuss why one is better than the other. 
4. Present the problem and solution: ask team members to present the problem and solution to you and evaluate if the solution actually solves the problem. If the solution works, team members can move on. If not, rinse and repeat the process until team members present the problem and solution that both managers and team members are content with. 

Although it may be tempting for managers to hand the solutions to team members, remember two things: 

1. Team members will never learn how to solve problems if managers are solving it for them. 
2. Team members are on the ground floor, closest to the problem, thus their solution with the manager’s help will be more effective than the manager’s suggested solution. Without being close enough to the problem, managers will not be able to suggest a good solution. 
   

​Managers must always do what is right not what is easy.