Strategic Thinking: Don't Bring Problems - Bring Solutions

Ah to be young again. To be able to make mistakes repeatedly and egregiously. To have paternal and maternal figures in our careers who forgive the errors of our youth and kindly guide us to better answers... I miss those days. One of the best "thinking" mentors I had was very understanding of the errant ways of youth and my penchant to find issues all around. I'm blessed to have run across him because he taught me a new way to look at the world.

It started innocently enough. I was new to consulting at the time and was bold, brash and driven (nine years in the Army and spending a few of those years on tanks will do that to you). I was serving a particularly ornery client on a tremendously thorny set of issues. Long hours and frequent travel were wearing on my patience.

Friday finally rolled around. As consultants, we'd all return to the mother ship on Fridays and spend our day in the home office sharing best practices and developing new strategic frameworks (which is code for we'd complain about the hours we were logging and how difficult either our clients or our partners managing our projects were being).

On this particular Friday, I was good and spun up. It had been a train wreck of a week at the client. The progress review went poorly. They were pushing back hard on our recommendations. They put us in a cold, drafty, smelly conference room (I think it used to be a janitor's closet). Subway was closed for renovations and I had to eat at JoJo's Subs (don't ask...). As I was bemoaning my plight to a colleague, our office director came around the corner (he was also the senior partner on my client engagement). He asked what I was so upset about.

"They're simply not paying attention to the analysis. It's clear what they have to do. The data couldn't be any more striking. They won't listen and they won't properly resource the team to capture the opportunity."

"Okay. So?"

"So?! So?! It's a disaster. We're never going to make progress."

"Listen Mike... don't bring me problems. Bring me solutions. I don't have time for problems."

He was right. The comment stopped me dead in my tracks. My job was to create ideas and recommendations. I had been brought in to solve problems, not identify and complain about them. I sheepishly slunk off to my office to think about it.

The lens he had given me put a whole new perspective on the next week's work. Every issue that came up, I found myself asking "how do I solve this?" Suddenly, issues tended to disappear and the entire conversation became focused on new possibilities and potential solutions. The work became a lot less frustrating and significantly more interesting and rewarding.

By the time the following Friday rolled around, we had actually made progress on some of the bigger issues the client was facing. They were starting to look to me and the rest of the team for the creative solutions they expected us to bring to the table. I went into the office with a renewed pep in my step (maybe it was the quad espresso). As I engaged in a conversation with our office director, I was not only highlighting the problems we encountered at the client that week but was laying out a plan for how we were going to solve them. He left the conversation with nothing more than a "Thanks. Good stuff." I had finally given him what he and the client were looking for - solutions.

So the next time you find someone on your team complaining about problems, put the onus on them. Ask them what they're doing to solve it. If they burst into your office with a litany of issues, try the "don't bring me problems... bring me solutions" comment. It will reorient their thinking pretty quickly and can produce dramatic and positive results. And the next time you find yourself complaining about all that ails you, ask yourself the same question. You've been hired to solve problems, not report on them.

- Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC