Have you ever voiced a concern to your boss, only to have her chastise you for bringing it up or worse, put you in charge of resolving it? Or maybe you ARE the boss and people are traipsing in and out of your office all day with every manner of issues and complaints. Neither situation is enviable or likely to make you feel appreciated and happy with your day.

I have experienced the bad end of both scenarios during my career, so I figured out a way to approach the situation that satisfies everyone involved and ensures issues are addressed more productively.

In this article I will share with you a few of my early career experiences, my resulting method of dealing with people bringing me problems, and three specific examples using this method.

Early Career Experience

I walked into my boss’ office one day and said, “Our quality metrics have been looking pretty bad the past few months; I think we need to analyze our processes and figure out what is causing this.” He said, “That is a great idea. Why don’t you put together a detailed plan and call a review meeting to discuss it?”

Me and my big mouth; I did not have time for that! I brought it up because I thought he would take care of it. I grumbled as I walked away, “Next time, I will just keep my thoughts to myself.”

Perhaps I was not a quick enough learner, though, because I later tried to bring another problem to his attention. It was a serious issue with another co-worker involving unethical behavior. I felt a moral obligation to bring my boss’ attention to this situation, but when I did, he treated me like I was a child tattling on my sibling. He chose to ignore the situation, so the unethical behavior continued unchecked. I began thinking that this might not be the best place for me to work.

Not too long after that, I accepted a Management position and quickly gained an understanding of the logic behind my boss’ responses to these two situations. I did not have just one employee trying to drop problems in my lap; I had forty. As a Manager, you simply cannot address everything yourself. You have to filter out the garbage, delegate where you can, and train staff members to think for themselves.

So, yes, I could see why my old boss asked me to drive the quality improvement efforts. I was concerned about it; I was appropriately skilled to handle it; and I was standing there in the doorway. I can also see why he ignored the ethical issue. He had no evidence and it is highly likely that I was one of many in his office that day complaining about a co-worker.

Understanding this, however, does not change the fact that these responses were not optimal. I was one of his most dependable and productive employees and he was driving me out of the company. Not to mention, he was basically training me to ignore issues, some of which might turn out to be critical to our success. I thought about this often in my new Management position and decided I must find a way to handle these situations to the mutual benefit of me, my staff, and the company. I came up with something that worked so well, it became my standard mode of operation throughout my management career.

Issue Management Method

First, I had to prepare my staff for this new change. I gathered them together and said, “My door is open to any problems or concerns that you want to bring to my attention. However, along with any problem, I expect you to bring ideas for solving it. After all, I hired you for your expertise, and chances are very good that you will have better ideas than me. Together, we will decide the appropriate actions to take so that neither of us is left with an unresolved issue hanging over our heads.”

Bring solutions along with the problem!

We discussed it. I answered questions and my staff unanimously agreed it was reasonable. We were off to a good start.

I then reinforced this idea by practicing my new method any time someone approached me with a problem:

1. Ask pertinent questions.
2. Elicit suggestions for resolution.
3. Offer alternative ideas and discuss options.
4. Clearly define next steps, ownership, and timeframe.

1. Ask pertinent questions.

The first thing you need to understand is the significance of the problem. Does it actually warrant your attention? Ask the right questions to figure this out quickly. If it is important, proceed to the next step.

2. Ask for suggestions on resolving the issue or concern.

Do not offer suggestions until the employee has offered his. He may have a great plan already, so the only energy you need to invest is a pat on the back for a job well done. If further discussion is needed, proceed to step 3.

3. Offer alternative ideas and discuss options.

If you have alternative ideas to offer after hearing our your employee, do so. Together, identify the best option and proceed to step 4.

4. Clearly define next steps, ownership, and timeframe.

To ensure the issue does not go unresolved, you must define the next steps to be taken, who will take them, and within what timeframe. Be sure to get buy-in from the “owner(s)” of the next steps.

Examples

example 1 Jessica brought a product failure report into my office and expressed concern about a critical failure that was not on anyone’s schedule to fix. I asked her under what conditions the problem occurs. She told me that it only surfaced on a specific hardware platform during a specific test. When I asked her what hardware platform and she told me, I pointed out that we were no longer supporting that platform. She said, “Oh, right. Well, that would be pointless to fix then. I’ll just close this problem out. Sorry to have bothered you.” Jessica learned a quick lesson on thinking a problem through more carefully.

example 2 One of my Quality Assurance (QA) employees complained that the Software Engineers were not doing even basic testing before turning the product over for QA testing. I had already recognized this problem, so I asked her what she thought we should do about it. She suggested writing up a set of qualifying tests to run the product through before sending it to QA. It seemed like a good idea, although I could see potential issues with it, such as writing tests that were too long and complicated, getting the engineers to buy into it, and figuring out who would run the tests. We quickly determined we would need to pull more people into the conversation, so we scheduled a meeting with a few key employees to iron out the details.

example 3 One of my proudest moments happened just a few weeks after we started practicing this team approach to problem-solving. One of my senior software engineers walked into my office and told me about a problem he was having in his code. I asked him, “What are you going to do about that?” He said, “I am going to….” and then he rattled off the steps he was going to take. I said, “That sounds like a great plan.” He said, “Yes, it is.” Then he left. That is the kind of problem I like to solve!

Final Comments

There are unending scenarios you may encounter, but in general if you take a team approach to problem solving, then no single person feels overly burdened and everyone involved has a vested interest in a positive outcome. In addition, your staff learns to think problems through more completely and they are not as likely to ignore a critical issue that needs your attention.

If you happen to be the employee of a boss without this vision, try bringing problems to his attention with suggested solutions. Chances are high that your boss will find this refreshing and may be more willing to give you his attention.