How many times have we heard this fundamental axiom of management?
Here's an alternative approach:
1. Give me a heads up about the problem so i can be thinking about it.
2. Bring some possible suggestions for solutions. You probably won't have all the data so don't get too attached to any one solution.
3. I'll come up with some ideas, but I probably won't have all the data either so
4. Let's meet and share our ideas and craft a solution together which is much more likely to be more powerful and effective than anything either of us could have come up with alone.
There are two principles at work in this suggestion.
1. One of the fundamental principles of the quality disciplines is that all employees work in a system that they don't own and don't control. The employees are intimately familiar with the limitations of that system but they are largely powerless to effect any changes. Managers, who have the authority to change the system, don't work in it and therefore have little visibility into the problems or any visceral sense of the cost or impact of the problems. It is only through the collaboration of managers and employees that process improvement can take place. Managers must acknowledge that employees have the information and then work with employees to make the process and systemic changes that produce real improvement.
2. In their excellent and classic little book Getting To Yes
Roger Fisher and William Ury show elegantly how two minds together are far more likely to create a more creative outcome than either mind alone, no matter how talented. By coming together with ideas rather than solutions, a collaborative dynamic is created which will be much more likely to lead to a mutually satisfying outcome. As soon as one party brings a "solution", a very different dynamic is created in which the manager is much more likely to take a black and white position in response, which often is "That won't work." End of conversation. Employee is demotivated, problem is likely to persist.
Roger Fisher and William Ury show elegantly how two minds together are far more likely to create a more creative outcome than either mind alone, no matter how talented. By coming together with ideas rather than solutions, a collaborative dynamic is created which will be much more likely to lead to a mutually satisfying outcome. As soon as one party brings a "solution", a very different dynamic is created in which the manager is much more likely to take a black and white position in response, which often is "That won't work." End of conversation. Employee is demotivated, problem is likely to persist. Discuss this shift in approach at your next staff meeting. See what happens.
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