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Stop Telling Your Team “Don’t Bring Me Problems”. Instead, Do This
Are you encouraging a collaborative mindset or placing value on doing it alone?
‘Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions’ is a phrase used by many managers — even the well-intentioned ones — who believe that it encourages their team members to be creative thinkers, while all it does is promote siloed thinking.
The message you want to pass is one of encouragement and empowerment, but instead, it dissuades your team from bringing up problems — problems they find hard to solve or ones that need your support and guidance.
You want to challenge them, push them harder to find solutions on their own, and show them that you trust them, but that’s not what they hear when you tell them to stop bringing problems. It conveys that you’re only interested in hearing about the problems they can solve. What do you think they will do then when they don’t know how to solve something on their own?
Mistaking empowerment with a solutions only mindset is actually quite common. Empowerment enables a sense of inquiry, and a collaborative mindset that encourages multiple perspectives whereas a solutions only mindset discourages sharing of opinions and places value on doing it alone.
As a manager, it’s important to watch your reaction when your team members bring you problems or try to seek your advice. For example, when they face a challenge or don’t know how to progress in their goals, getting angry or irritated won’t fix the problem. It will only make things worse. Your team will be encouraged to only share the good news while hiding anything that might make you mad.
Telling your team to stop bringing you problems creates an environment in which employees don’t feel safe to talk about the real issues.
- It makes you ignorant of the real problems that impact your team or you get to hear about them too late.
- Your team wastes too much time in trying to solve a problem on their own, often impacting delivery timelines.
- They are persuaded to cover up a problem for fear of retribution.
- Small problems left unattended for long may turn into crises.
