How often do you face a business problem or challenge? Or how often does someone (one of your employees) come to you with a problem, trying to delegate coming up with the solution to you? I’m guessing multiple times a day.
What do you do when that happens?
Do you solve the problem by yourself? Do you gather your senior team together to work through possible solutions? Do you delegate solving the problem to someone else? Or do you just ignore it and cross your fingers that it will go away, or solve itself?
There are some leaders who are extraordinarily disciplined about letting others find solutions. One of my CEO friends told this story when we did a webinar on leadership together:
“One of my company leaders came to me in my office visibly shaken and nervous. He said, I have some terrible news for you. We have just lost our biggest client.”
We all wondered how the CEO responded. He told us, he paused for a moment, and then replied, “Thanks for letting me know. I’m sure you’ll find the best solution. Keep me updated.”
Bam!
How many of us leaders have the guts to do that? Someone walks into our office and dumps a huge issue on you, expecting you to tell them how to solve it. And instead, you graciously let them know you have every confidence in them finding the best path forward.
If you aren’t comfortable doing that, it may be that you like to be the smartest person in the room and are used to barking out solutions to your team. Or, perhaps you aren’t confident in the people you have hired and they have become accustomed to you solving all the challenges that come up.
What’s the problem with this? Realistically, if you have trained your people that you have to be the one who offers the solutions, then why do you have them? Is it your ego or is it the competence of your people?
If your people don’t have the opportunity to exercise their own problem-solving muscle, then, when you aren’t around things could fall apart. Or you could lose another big client or a bunch of money.
Next time someone walks in your office with a problem to solve, try this:
“Thanks for the update. What solutions have you thought of?” If they say they don’t know what to do and that’s why they have come to you. Then you can say:
“If you have to guess at possible solutions, what would some options be?” or “If I was on vacation on a remote island or in-flight and unreachable for the next 15 hours, what would you do?”
<After they share their options with you, then encourage them to go ahead with their best solution.>
You may be pleasantly surprised at how your employees come up with solutions that you have not thought of, or ones superior to yours. When forced to solve their own problems, your team members may surprise you.
And the added benefit is they will feel more empowered, independent and valued.
Onward and upward,
Executive Coaching and Consulting for CEOs, Presidents and Owners in all industries
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