Great Leaders Think “Bring Problems, Let’s Find a Solution Together”
Why you should stop saying “Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions”
[FYI this was originally published in The Startup June, 2020]
A couple of months ago, I sat in a meeting and listened to yet another manager blurt out the all too popular proverb “I hate it when my team comes to me with problems, they’re always complaining. Don’t come to me with problems, come with solutions.”
Every time I hear this dichotomy of “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” it’s like nails down a chalkboard for me.
Those who subscribe to this mentality will tell you that it’s “empowering”, it facilitates a solution-orientated mindset and reduces complaining. However, there’s a nuance in there — what about problems that we aren’t able to solve ourselves? What about collaboration in order to find the best solution rather than the endorsement of the first solution someone brings to the table?
As Wharton professor Adam Grant states this kind of solution-orientated mindset creates “a culture of advocacy instead of one of inquiry”.
Meaning that we tend to advocate for the first solution someone comes up with as opposed to exploring further to identify multiple options and select the best solution.
Doesn’t it foster a solutions-oriented mindset?
Yes but there are other ways to do this.
Not everyone can solve all the problems they face and this kind of black-and-white statement — “don’t come to me with problems” — can breed fear and put stress on people to find the right solution to the problem before speaking up.
This can lead to people becoming fearful of raising issues or asking for help, often resulting in a number of problems being swept under the rug.
“The “bring me a solution” approach can also cause employees to shut down in fear, breed a culture of intimidation, and prevent some problems from surfacing until they’re full-blown crises.” — HBRSabina Nawaz, global CEO coach
Rather being welcoming and helpful in my experience will yield better results in the long run. “Teach a man to fish” isn’t as simple as telling them that they need to fish and “don’t ask for food” anymore. It starts with you as a leader inviting them to come fishing with you.
Doesn’t it prevent a complaining-culture?
Agreed there is a fine line between raising issues and whining. However, this dichotomy runs the risk of having serious issues swept under the rug in the name of reducing “complaining”
One of your roles as a leader is to coach your people. If they are complaining then your responsibility is to understand why they are and coach them away from complaining to something constructive.
Often the root cause is actually something unrelated. Perhaps it's home or personal problems they are projecting, or they’ve built a defeatist mentality for (generally) a good reason.
Either case, your role as a leader isn’t to tell them to stop complaining your job is to either a) help resolve the core issue, or b) to help shift their mindset away from complaining.
In order to do that you need to allow people to come and complain to you. This is the only way you will be able to empathize with them and help “teach them to fish” (aka shift away from a complaining-culture).
Reality is the only barrier to doing this is yourself.
Often when I work with leaders I see two behaviors that drive this — Managers either can’t stand the complaining or they aren’t willing to put in the time and effort to listen, empathize and help solve the problem.
But guess what? That’s the job.
No one said it’ll be easy, in fact, leadership is highly demanding at the best of times but if you make the choice to walk down this path you become responsible for other people and that includes empathizing with them and helping to solve their problems.
Doesn’t it empower people?
I actually interpret "don't come with problems, come with solutions" as disempowering.
True empowerment would negate the statement altogether — if someone has to come up with a list of solutions and ask for permission, that’s not empowerment.
True empowerment would be finding problems, coming up with solutions, and solve them yourself without even having to tell anyone or ask permission. The only time you would go to your manager with a solution would be to get their input, not to ask for permission.
In a way, the statement actually portrays a kind of ‘empowerment theatre’ where it comes across as empowering but really isn’t as all solutions need to go through a single person to give their stamp of approval.
Whether this is intentional or not that’s the message that many are interpreting — “bring the solution to me before you execute it.”
The question you need to ask yourself is if people were truly empowered would that manager still approve a solution that they didn’t like, or agree with?
Perhaps, and if they do you’ve got the question why did they have to bring the solutions to them in the first place? Why aren’t they empowered to just do it?
Perhaps a more empowering phrase would be “if you can’t first solve it yourself, come to me with the problem and we’ll solve it together.”
Jocko Willink on why leaders should ALWAYS go with someone else’s solution and not their own
Doesn’t it create better solutions?
The idea of having more than one person exploring solutions is a good thing. And I don’t deny that this statement helps increase the number of people looking for a solution, albeit by one.
However, in my experience, it actually suffocates innovation and falls victim to a number of biases.
First, it doesn’t foster collaboration. It pushes the onus onto the person who found the problem to solve it. And the person who found the problem isn’t necessarily going to be the best person to solve it.
Being able to raise problems is crucial not only for resolving them but also so we can identify who is best placed to solve it.
Unfortunately stating “don’t bring me problems” tends to set a certain tone and culture. One where people start to extend this onto their peers — no longer do they feel comfortable bringing problems to their colleagues because they’ve been conditioned to “bring solutions, not problems”.
“Identifying problems can be a solo sport, but finding solutions rarely is.” — Frances Frei
Further, there are times where the size of the problem will be too large for a single person to solve. Without being able to raise the problem and ask for help many problems are swept under the rug and go unsolved.
The end result is that as people collaborate less the opportunity to explore further solutions is reduced. This can lead to an action bias culture, one where we jump on the first solution we come up with.
As much research states, innovation requires exploration. It requires exploring the problem space and then the exploration of many different possible solutions — seldom is our first idea the best one.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions” — Albert Einstien
Just be approachable and have a conversation
The reality is that there will always be a long list of problems to solve but as a leader, you really want to be shining a light on as many of them as possible.
As such building an environment where people feel safe to surface problems early and often is paramount. Only through identifying them can you start to solve them.
The best way you can do this as a leader is to simply be welcoming and empathetic.
As James Willis commented on my Linkedin post on the topic:
“Forget the problem vs solution. Make yourself approachable and just have a conversation.”
James Willis dropped some wisdom (as always!)
It’s really just about being human, authentic, and welcoming.
Simply be there to help, regardless of whether someone brings you problems vs solutions.
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