When companies find themselves facing difficult problems, technical, operational or strategic, they often look to the subject matter experts, troubleshooters, and seasoned problem solvers in their organization (or as outside consultants) to help.\u00a0 There is a growing recognition that individuals with problem-solving skills are able to learn more quickly, are more adaptable, and able to sort through complex situations to find solutions faster than those individuals lacking or weak in problem-solving skills.\u00a0 The obvious question then becomes, \u201cif having individuals with problem-solving skills is the answer, why don\u2019t we just get more of them?\u201d\u00a0 There must be another piece to this puzzle that companies are missing.\u00a0 There is, and the answer is culture.<\/p>\n
Problem-solving is rarely an individual activity.\u00a0 Experience has shown that issues that impact only one person or can be solved by one person usually get resolved quickly and never develop into true problems.\u00a0 Almost every business impacting problem that an organization encounters involves a number of people \u2013 a workgroup, a business function, a group of people engaged in a process, relationships with outside suppliers or customers, etc.\u00a0 If problems involve (and are potentially caused by) a number of people, it makes sense that diagnosing and solving problems also require involvement of more than one individual.<\/p>\n
But what differentiates an organization that solves problems well from those that continually struggle?\u00a0 As mentioned before, it\u2019s the culture.\u00a0 Highly effective problem solving organizations have a culture that promotes teamwork over individualism.\u00a0 Teamwork is more than a group of individuals coming together to work on something \u2013 it\u2019s about a sense of connectedness, shared purpose and collaborating in activities and the development of ideas.\u00a0 You can have the best qualified individuals working together, but unless they are operating as a cohesive team unit, you will never see their true value potential.<\/p>\n
Applying the team culture insight back to problem-solving, there are a few things your organization can do to boost your problem-solving performance.\u00a0 Skills training is a good place to start.\u00a0 It is still true that a team is only as strong as its weakest player so investing in your people is a good thing.\u00a0 But if you want to get more value out of that training, don\u2019t train the individuals \u2013 train the team.\u00a0 Give them the opportunity to not only learn individual skills, but also learn to apply those skills in the team context.\u00a0 By learning problem-solving skills together your team will have an easier time understanding the role that each person needs to play when a real business problem occurs.<\/p>\n
Beyond training, look to your processes.\u00a0 Often times companies look at process as driving conformance and consistency \u2013 that may be true.\u00a0 Good processes do something more important for your employees and your teams \u2013 it provides a common baseline understanding of what needs to be done and the mechanics of execution which in turn enables them to focus more attention on the problem at hand.\u00a0 Its like the bicycle analogy \u2013 once you develop proficiency in riding a bike, you can focus less on turning the pedals and more on where you want to go on a bike ride.\u00a0 Problem solving processes can help your team understand what they need to do, how they need to interact with each other, what tools and resources they have at their disposal and when to seek escalation and outside involvement.\u00a0 Processes make teams stronger.<\/p>\n
With well-trained people and solid processes, the final piece of this puzzle is behavior and attitude towards accountability.\u00a0 Nothing undermines your problem-solving effort more than looking for someone to \u201cblame\u201d for a problem.\u00a0 A culture that places blame encourages people to hide their mistakes, withhold information and in many cases inhibits the continuous improvement activities that problem-solving is all about.\u00a0 Rather than seeking an individual to blame, teams should be encouraged to take shared accountability for problems, their underlying causes and the preventative actions to resolve them.\u00a0 Most problems start somewhere, and that may be an individual or an activity that the individual is responsible for.\u00a0 Instead of focusing on \u201cwho is responsible?\u201d, a high performing team will instead focus on \u201cwho has the opportunity to make our collective situation better and how can the rest of us help?\u201d<\/p>\n
Problem solving isn\u2019t just an individual activity, it\u2019s a team sport.\u00a0 If you would like to up-level your team\u2019s problem-solving performance and improve your team culture, the experts at Kepner-Tregoe can help.\u00a0 For over 50 years, we have been working with organizations across a wide variety of industries and governmental functions to provide problem-solving training, implement process best practices, and coach teams through some really big problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When companies find themselves facing difficult problems, technical, operational or strategic, they often look to the subject matter experts, troubleshooters, and seasoned problem solvers in their organization (or as outside consultants) to help.\u00a0 There is a growing recognition that individuals with problem-solving skills are able to learn more quickly, are more adaptable, and able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[84],"class_list":["post-24880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n