A client of mine is in the process of teaching his employees to SOLVE their own problems….

If you have employees, Im sure you can agree, this is not easy.

He has a senior tradesman that will ask for the answer/solution to almost every issue that he faces…

Is he looking for validation? Maybe.

Is he seeking the answer because he’s too lazy to solve it on his own? Perhaps.

Does he want to avoid responsibility? Possibly.

Whatever the case, when this tradesman consistently interrupts my client, he is costing the factory downtime, eroding any efficiency and causing frustration.

This might be happening to you? People that need to pass every scenario by you, just to make sure they made the right decision.

Enough is enough. Heres how I’m helping my client fix it:

Step 1: When you get another “question” from an employee – ask them straight away…”What do you think you should do?”… then wait.

Step 2: If they are struggling to find an answer/solution, coach them so they can find the answer on their own. Empower them to engage their own problem solving abilities by asking questions, allow them to take responsibility for making a decision and then encourage them to take action on it. DO NOT GIVE THEM THE ANSWER.

Step 3: Repeat the above two steps every time a “question” comes your way.

The only reason why our employees are NOT creating their own solutions is because we haven’t trained them to do so…

And in order for them to think for themselves, we must become the coach, that helps them develop their problem solving skills, so they can make decisions and solve problems confidently, without fear of making the wrong move.

Ideal outcome – you create problem solving super-employees that no longer have a dependancy on you. (Win!)

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