Problem Solving With Your Team

How can leaders engage their teams in a meaningful way? By stimulating their brains positively through support and praise, rather than shutting them down with negativity. It’s important to encourage your team to concentrate on the most important things, rather than joining in a flurry of activity or allowing internal negative backbiting to get the best of the team. In the times they come together, teams really want problem solving oriented thinking, not report outs.

As problems or concerns arise during staff meetings, this is a great way to deal with them: say, “Let’s focus on that issue in our next team problem-solving session.” Employees feel as though they’re being heard, they know action will be taken, and they are a part of the solution instead of just complaining about the problem.

In fact, neuroscientists have found that the brain doesn’t build connections when told what to do; it only changes patterns when we’re involved in the process. Thus, involvement literally equals changed mind-sets. So you believe in the value of engaging employees in solving the critical business problems, and you take time to address these as a team. If possible, have a placeholder in your regular team meeting for identifying problems that need attention at a future, separate session. I don’t recommend that you deal with them at the time of the meeting; you will merely take away from the original purpose. However, asking people to keep an eye out for areas of improvement on a regular basis is a great way to keep them engaged in the discovery process.

If you can’t cover this issue during a separate session and it needs to be incorporated into a regular team meeting, then only choose one problem to discuss and make sure you allow enough time on the agenda to really get into it. And don’t make it the last agenda item, because you might never get to it. Or by the time that you do, the energy level has been sapped by dealing with the more mundane, but urgent issues and people are just ready to get out of there.

If you can create separate, focused, creative, problem-solving sessions, then I recommend you move to a different location from your regular staff meeting. A different view out the window can trigger a different view from your mind’s eye.

Now that you have made it clear that thinking with creativity is a priority—and have demonstrated this by setting aside specific time to be creative—how do you make sure that your behavior during the session doesn’t put a damper on your teammates’ desire to offer their ideas?

People can feel very vulnerable sharing original thoughts; in fact, many consider the risk of speaking up to outweigh any possible benefits. “When in doubt, keep your mouth shut,” says that little voice in their heads. Some leaders have managed teams whose members only introduced issues at the weekly staff meeting that they knew had already been resolved. Bringing something new to everyone’s attention was simply perceived as too risky. In addition, they were worried that their colleagues would think that they were throwing someone under the bus or blindsiding them if they hadn’t already shared—and resolved—any problems with others outside of the meeting. Everyone except the leader knew implicitly that it was better just to keep quiet. So what’s a leader to do? In our next post, we’ll talk about this issue, and how you can convey to your team the value of speaking up.