Years ago I trained my team, (specifically Kathryn and Carina, in the early days), to not bring me problems but instead bring me solutions to problems. After all, that’s why we hire people. To solve problems. There is a pervading issue in small businesses that the owner has to be the one to solve all the problems because “they’ll want it done in a certain way, and who know what they’ll want, and we better ask them so we get it right, and we don’t want to make a mistake.” This thinking is the source of much misery for practice owners and for teams alike. It creates an impossible bottleneck and inefficiency in the system that is your practice. If this is you, hold on to your hat because we’re about to solve this for you and your team!
Set the expectations with your team that you want them to bring you well-thought-out solutions.
Clarify your core values as a team and repeat them all the time so the team understand ‘how we think around here’ and what things are most important. Bringing core values to life in your practice is the most empowering thing you can ever do for your team. It shows them that there is no magic ability that you have as an owner. You were not anointed with some problem-solving ability at birth. You simply use these core values to decide what to do in any given situation. And when your team understand theses core values, they can use them to make better decisions too.
What we’re talking about here is delegation not abdication. That means we’re not saying just any decision will do. Solutions have to be well-thought-out. What I’m saying is your team are capable of doing the thinking. You can’t be the one doing all the thinking. I hired my team for their strengths, their intelligence, their can-do attitude. They are smart enough to solve the majority of the problems in the practice.
Introduce the subject: business owners are hungry for information but don’t have much time to consume it. Ask your team to summarise what it is and why it matters. Use brevity and be specific. That means having short descriptions about the who, what, why, where, when, and how of the matter. How big an issue is it? How often? How much? How long?
Organise your thoughts: thinking is asking and answering questions. Think about it. How do you think about what to have for breakfast? You’ll have a mental conversation with yourself lead by questions like: What did I have yesterday? What’s in the fridge? What do I feel like? Do I really want that? How much time have I got? And so on. I’ll say it again THINKING IS SIMPLY ASKING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS. It’s a muscle you build through use. Asking better questions will lead you to sharper thinking.
So when my team give me a snippet of a problem and ask me what I think, the fact is I don’t know what I think because I haven’t done any thinking on it yet. That’s why I respond with 15 questions for them. Run the answers to these questions through the filter of our core values and that is what I think!
So here’s the process to empower your team and remove yourself from being the bottleneck. Give this to your team.
- Know our core values inside out.
- Do the thinking (ask a bunch of good questions).
- Tell me what you think!
The last part is vital. Tell me what you think once you’ve done the thinking. I want to know! If I can sharpen your thinking with a few overlooked questions or an overlooked core value I will, but a most of the time your thinking on the matter will be good to go if you’ve thought it through.
To more thinking!
Many hands minds make light work!