Empower employees to solve problems on their own

Imagine a football game. The play ends, the whole team comes into the huddle, and the quarterback looks at one of his players and asks, what happened over there? And the guy says, he was being mean to me. You would stand there in disbelief. What are you talking about? Are you kidding me?

That is about how I felt this week. A couple of days ago I put out a video about not letting people who are junior to you hand you their problems. Hundreds of thousands of people responded, which honestly surprised me. And a big slice of the response was the same objection: why would you say that? You are their boss. You are supposed to solve their problems.

No, no, no. They are supposed to help you. Let me walk you through it, because this one point is the difference between leading a company and getting buried by one.

A job is a duty

This is a job, guys. We are running a business here. When you show up to work, you are given a duty, and that duty is to solve the problems of your area. Not to collect them. Not to forward them up the chain. To solve them.

When you walk into an office environment, every person in it has a job. And what you have to do as the boss is empower each of those people to actually do theirs. The moment you start solving their problems for them, you have quietly taken their job away and added it to your own.

Solving problems is the joy of living

Think about how this works in your own life. You run into something hard and you go, how on earth am I going to handle this? Then the bright idea shows up. What if I tried it this way? You go out, you work it, and all of a sudden the issue is resolved. You feel better. You feel bigger.

Solving problems is what gives you the zest of living. So when you swoop in and take a problem off someone's desk, you are not doing them a favor. You are robbing them of the exact experience that makes work feel like living.

Give your people the space. Give them the latitude. Empower them and hand them the responsibility along with the job. That is what leadership is. Management shuffles problems around. Leadership builds people who can handle them.

One demand: bring a solution

Now, obviously there is a limit. If the thing is dangerous and it is going to hurt your company, you cannot just let it float out there and say, I hope they fix it. Some fires you jump on. That is common sense.

But for everything else, here is the rule: when somebody brings you a problem, or data about some situation, demand that it comes with at least their own solution attached. What is your solution for this? Give me your best idea, and then we will talk.

Because if you do not demand that, people learn they can run into your office yelling the sky is falling, drop it on your desk, and walk away lighter. Accept that once and it wraps right around your neck. Pretty soon all you are dealing with as an executive is problems, problems, problems, all day long, and none of them are yours.

Post by post

Here is the picture I want you to keep. You are supposed to be at your post, solving the problems of your post. They are supposed to be at their post, solving the problems of theirs.

Together you expand. Together you do better. Together everybody gets empowered, including you. That is the way it is supposed to work. Hope it helps.