Rules Of Management

RULE 34 - Train them to bring you solutions, not problems

“Bring me solutions, not problems.”

Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister (1979-90)

It’s terribly easy for staff to moan. I think it becomes a habit. You have to train your staff not just o moan. You can allow moaning but insist that if they bring you a problem they must also suggest a solution to the problem. Any idea that there is something wrong should always be met with, ‘And what would you like me to do about it?’ If they complain, meet them with, ‘What do you think we should do?’

“Any idea that there is something wrong should always be met with, ‘And what would you like me to do about it?’ ”

The best manager I ever worked for carried this even further and made us tell him the solution first – and then let him guess what he thought our ‘problem’ was. It made it a game, which was sort of fun, but it also made us think on our feet a bit – made us be a bit lateral in our moaning. I was having a problem with security staff. I thought they were wiping the CCTV footage without watching it, which was not on. This was my problem because if anything had happened I would have carried the can. I needed them to watch carefully but couldn’t devise a solution to this problem – but I couldn’t just go the boss and moan that they weren’t doing their job properly. I had to come up with a solution first.

Then it dawned on me that I didn’t need to go to the boss. I could solve this one myself. I had to make sure the security staff thought there was something worth watching. I mentioned that some members of staff had been reported as having sex somewhere on the premise and it could have been covered by the CCTV cameras, but no one was sure by which camera. There were cameras covering car parks, offices, corridors and storage areas in the basement. Result. The security bods started watching as if their lives depended on it. My boss was pleased because this done properly and was going to pull me up on it. And I had come up with a solution to a problem without going to my boss and just moaning, ‘Oh, the security people aren’t doing their job properly…’

Admittedly I had to come up with a fresh solution once the security staff realized they weren’t going to see any smutty pictures – but it took them a long time, and they keep going back just in case…

posted by Right Ranger @ 6:52 PM