Why Most Teams Are Addicted to Problems
Organizations reward the management of problems rather than their elimination. Nir Bashan for Psychology Today
Key points
Modern organizations claim they want solutions.
Yet organizations tend to reward the management of problems rather than the elimination of them.
A solution mindset can introduce transformational ways to deal with problems at work.
There is a crisis going on at just about every workplace right now across our country. Most teams seem to be addicted to problems. Drawn like moths to a flame, they chase endless problems in the business wherever they appear. In inventory. In customer service. On the retail floor. In accounting or finance.
And it seems as if the workplace unconsciously rewards problem preservation. We have entire departments set up to underscore problems. Committees that are dedicated to problem perpetuation. Meetings that reinforce problems instead of looking to resolve them and offer solutions. Sound familiar?
Yet there are ways that leaders can break the cycle and flip the narrative once and for all into a solution mindset.
1. Take It Off Autopilot
Apollo 14 was a less-famous NASA mission than the one that came before it. It came after Apollo 13, which was one of the most infamous space missions ever. The story of Apollo 13 was and still is made into countless movies and books because an explosion on board early in the flight led to eventual heroics that returned the space capsule home with the astronauts alive.1 But while Apollo 13 often gets all the attention, Apollo 14 has an amazing story as well. And it is one that will help you and your teams lose the addiction to seeking out problems and instead help look for solutions.
Apollo 142 was a pretty standard routine mission until it could not dock with the lunar module.3 There were difficulties with the docking because the docking was set to automatic. There was no possible way things could go wrong because autopilot always works. Until it doesn’t work. There were six attempts to dock, but each of them failed. After almost two hours, pilot Stu Roosa asked for permission to take it off autopilot and assume manual control to fly by hand. It worked, and the spacecraft was able to dock.
The lesson here for us? Take it off autopilot at work. We are so accustomed to doing our day-to-day routine blindly. We are so comfortable rewarding management for the “management” of problems instead of the elimination of them. So changing how we view problem solving by taking it out of auto mode and actually digging in can yield incredible creative results.
2. Try Solution Ownership
The usual model of organizational rumination is not going to solve problems; it is going to prolong them just long enough for a whole group of staffing roles to be introduced around the never-ending cycle of not fixing things. Then problems tend to stick around for far longer than they should because they are literally someone’s paycheck. And when someone’s food is on the line, the problem will never go away; it will shape-shift forever to ensure that person, team, or sector will always have the protection of a job.
So what can we do? Try solution ownership. In the solution ownership model, flip the switch to solutions that are encouraged instead of problem management.
For example, let’s say you run a franchise of retail stores. And there is a situation going on that needs to be fixed in South Florida. Instead of assigning someone or a team to handle this situation with the South Florida stores, flip the script. Challenge teams in those South Florida stores to define the conditions that would make this problem no longer exist.
That subtle yet powerful shift will now introduce something that is wonderful, and that something is ownership. Who doesn’t want the opportunity to fix things themselves without the oversight of someone else? As the stores define the conditions that would make these issues no longer exist on their own, now their solutions become their own too.
In the case of our example, the stores in South Florida do not want management there—they are now instead given the opportunity to take ownership and solve the issues themselves. In their own stores. On their own terms. And that yields to problems actually getting fixed, not shape-shifting into new ones that are endless.
3. Change The Meeting Structure
Often, meetings are a justification for work. It seems as if meetings prove we are actually doing something. They seek to prove that something occurred that is worthwhile. We even send out meeting notes to prove it. And we have recap meetings about the meetings we just had to discuss another meeting about that meeting.
If we can’t eliminate or reduce meetings in the organization altogether, there is still one profound change we can make in the meetings: When someone in a meeting brings up a problem, make it a rule that they also must bring up one solution.
Shift the conversation from “we don’t do this well” to “we can do this so much better.” Then make it a rule that it is necessary to suggest a way to do it better. For many meetings, this will shorten the meetings dramatically and allow for a solution mindset to take hold with attendees. Pretty soon, the meetings will turn into something practical and effective, instead of the usual complaint-driven routine.
Human beings are remarkable problem solvers when the conditions exist to support solving these problems in the first place. If the problems are a reason to keep someone employed or if the problems are a source of endless revenue for those who exploit them, they will never go away. Instead, if we are able to activate a solution mindset where the elimination of problems becomes the true goal, we reduce our team’s addiction to the problem and introduce real, meaningful, and actionable transformational change.
References
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/apollo/apollo-13-mission-details/
[2] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/apollo/apollo-14-mission-details/
