Managers have asked me how to deal with employees who are "not good at problem solving." That always makes me wonder: "How many problems come up that truly haven't been solved before? Why don't your direct reports have more ready-made solutions to use--at least for the problems that recur on a regular basis--so they don't have to problem solve on the fly?"
Why would you want employees on the front line or even supervisors to make important decisions on the basis of their own judgment if they could instead rely on accumulated experience of the organization?
Show me any employee who is making lots of bad decisions, and I'll show you someone who needs to be making a lot fewer decisions, at least for a while. And most of those decisions have already been made. Most "mistakes" in problem solving are decisions that were never up to that employee in the first place. Instead of trying to "make a decision," that employee should have just implemented the ready-made solution--a decision that was already made a long time ago.
Ready-made solutions are best practices that have been captured, turned into standard operating procedures, and deployed throughout the organization to employee for use as job aides. The most common job aid is a simple checklist. Imagine how much better most employees would solve the regularly recurring problems if you were to prepare them in advance:
If A happend, you do B
If C happens, you do D
If E happens, you do F
Many organiztions are able to provide not just step-by-step checklists, but automated menu-driven systems. These systems, like checklists, are frequently used in situations where errors could be catastrophic. If you have ever been in a hospital, you have seen these tools in action. Health care professionals are among the most highly educated, highly trained people in the workforce. Yet, rather than just count on their education and training, they are constantly using checlists and menu-driven systems as job aids to make sure they do not deviate from best practices.
As a leader, the question you need to ask yourself is this: What kind of job aids do you have at your disposal to help your employees master best practices for dealing with recurring problems, so they don't have to "problem-solve" anew each time?
If you do already have such job aids at your disposal, them make sure everybody on your team is using them. Go on a campaign. Spread the tools and spread the word. Use them as a centerpiece of your regular one-on-one dialouge with each person until they know the checklists backward and forward and use them without fail.
If you do not already have good job aids at your disposal, then you need to start working with your direct reports to create some!
If several people on your team are doing the same work and facing the same problems, pull them together as a team. Otherwise, take it one person at a time and brainstorm:
- Make a list of every recurring problem you face.
- Take each problem one by one, ask:
- What resources are available?
- How much discretion will the individual have to improvise?
What is the best solution here?
- Spell out the best practice for each problem, step by step.
- Make that spelled-out best practice a standard operating procedure.
- Turn those standard operating procedures into simple job aids, like checklists or automated menu-driven systems.
- Make sure everyone starts using them.
Every step of the way, as you use these job aids to coach your employees, pay close attention. Do the ready-made solutions work? Can they be improved? Are there permutations and nuances that have come up that the checklist does not anticipate? Job aids should be dynamic living tools that you can revive and improve over time.
Sometimes managers ask me, "Yes, but doesn't this approach actually end-run teaching problem solving? If they never have to puzzle through a problem, how do employees learn to solve problems on their own?"
For starters, they will learn and practice the best step-by-steps solutions to as many recurring problems as you can possibly think up in advance. Over time, together, you and they will add more and more recurring problems--and solutions--that that list. Employees who study those best practices and use those job aids will develop a steadily growing repertoire of ready-made solutions. There will be a lot of problems they can solve very well.
"But wait," a manager might protest. "What happens when the employee runs across a problem that was not specifically anticipated? If they are taught to implement ready-made step-by-step solutions, like robots, they won't know how to think for themselves. Won't they freeze up in the face of an unanticipated problem."
The answer is no. It turns out that by learning and practicing ready-made step-by-step solutions, employees get better not only at solving the specific problems anticipated but also a solving unanticipated problems. By teaching employees to implement specific step-by-step solutions to recurring problems, you are teaching them what good problem solving looks like--like so many case studies.
This is the point at which some managers will say, "I'm sorry, you never really learn unless you face some big problems and make some of your own mistakes. I like to let people learn from their own mistakes." Why not help them avoid making unnecessary mistakes? It is simply nonsense that a good way to learn problem solving is to stumble through problems alone, unguided, trying out solution based on relatively inexperienced guesses. Why would experience having unsuccessful encounters with problems be a good way to learn problem solving? Experience in problem solving successfully is what comes from learning and practicing ready-made solution. Employees get into the habit of solving problems well.
In your one-one-ones, when you talk about those ready-made solutions, you have the opportunity to help your diret reports begin to understand and appreciate the common denominators adn underlying principles. Talk through with them how they might draw on those common denominators and underlying principles when facing an unanticipated problem. Talk through how they might draw on elements of ready-made solutions, even mixing and matching to come up with solutions to an unanticipated problem. Talk about how they might extrapolate from ready-made solutions, should the need arise to improvise.
With this approach, you can radically improve your team's--or any individual employee's--record on basic problem solving. You will have fewer problems because anticipated problems with ready-made solutions are not really problems anymore. You will have many more problems that are solved quickly and easily. You will have fewer problems that are mishandled and fewer problems that hide below the surface and fester and grow unbeknownst to anyone.
On top of that, you will have given your direct reports a strong foundation in the fundamentals of problem solving. On that foundation, they can build more advanced problem-solving skills.
WHAT ABOUT MORE ADVANCED PROBLEM SOLVING?
"OK, said one director in an engineering firm. "But does this approach actually make employees smarter?"
I don't know whether you can make anybody any smarter. But I am pretty sure you can teach employees to steadily improve their judgment.
You do not want your employees improvising most of the time. You want them following established procedures. Best practices whenever possible. But it's just not possible to have procedures for everything. You can try very hard to anticipate every situation and help employees prepare. But you can't anticipate every possible situation. There are times when they just have to use good judgment.
HOW TO YOU HELP AN EMPLOYEE DEVELOP "GOOD JUDGMENT"?
Good judgment is the ability to see the connection between causes and their effects. A good judgment allows one to project likely outcomes--to accurately predict the consequences of specific decisions and actions. And good judgment allows one to learn from the past; to work backward from effects to assess likely causes, to figure out what decisions and actions led to the current situation.
If you are really trying to help an employee improve her judgment, then start spending time in your one-on-ones discussing with her waht she is doing to purposefully and systematically draw lessons from her experience at work. One day at a time, in your one-on-ones, spend time talking about her day-to-day actions:
+ Does she think about cause and effect?
+ Does she stop and reflect before making decisions and taking actions?
+ Does she project likely outcomes in advance?
+ Does she look at each decision and action as a set of choices, each with identifiable consequences.
Have you ever played chess? The key to success is any game of strategy is thinking ahead. Before making a move, you play out on your head likely outcomes, often over a long sequence of moves and countermoves. If I do A, the other player would probably respond with B. Then I would do C, and he would probably respond with D. Then I would do E, and he would probably respond with F. This what strategic planners call a decision or action tree, because each decision or action is the beginning of a branch of responses and counter-responses. In fact, each decision or action creates a series of possible counter-responses.
When you are workinbg with an employee to help him improve his judgment, start talkinbg in your one-on-ones about decision or action trees. Teach him to think ahead and play out the likely sequence of moves and countermoves before making move. Talk it through, play it outloud together: "If you take this decision or action, who is likely to respond, how, when, where and why? What set of options will this create? What set of options will this cut off? How will it play out if you make this other decision or action instead?"
Another way to junp-start an employee's growth in problem solving is to teach him to turn his own worlplace experiences into case studies from which to learn on an ongoing basis. This is like a case study method that is used by most business schools. Who were the key players? What were their interests and objectives? What happened? How did it happen? Where? When? What were the outcomes? Students are then taught to apply the methods of critical thinking to the facts of the case. They are taught to suspend judgment, question assumptions, uncover facts, and then rigorously analyze the decisions and actions taken by different key players in the case study. The pedagogy is simple: look at the outcomes, and trace them back to see the chains of cause and effect. You can teach employees to apply the case study method to their own experience:
What actually happened?
WHEN WHO WHAT WHERE HOW WHY
What decisions were made? Who made them? Why? What was the outcome?
DECISIONS WHO WHY OUTCOME
What actions were taken? Who made them? Why? What was the outcome?
ACTIONS WHO WHY OUTCOME
What were the leading alternative decisions that were not made? What different outcomes might have occured?
ALTERNATIVE DECISIONS POSSIBLE DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
What were the leading alternative actions that were not taken? What different outcomes might have occured?
ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS POSSIBLE DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
Maybe the most important thing you can do to jump-start your employee's development of advanced problem-solving skills is to teach them to scrutinize their own experiences, both while they are actually happening and afterward. Teach them to stop and reflect, after making decisions and taking actions, as well as when considering outcomes and consquences.
Use you one-on-ones to teach your employees to subject their own decisions and actions to much greater scrutiny every step of the way. What were the specific causes and of each outcome of consequence? Help them analyze their own decisions and actions on a ongoing basis.
Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT
Email: petercmclees@gmail.com or Mobile:323-854-1713
Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.
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