The Sound of Skidding Tires

A client of mine runs a team that's stretched thin. Open positions everywhere, nobody to fill them, the people he does have running on fumes.

Last session, he told me he'd figured it out. He'd built a real plan. Smart, well thought out, the kind of thing that actually could work.

His next move: walk in and tell his team the plan.

I heard the tires skid before he even finished the sentence.

"Whoa, friend," I said.

Knowing me well enough by now, he rolled his eyes. "Put the problem in front of the team and have them think through solutions together," he said.

Because people don't like being told. Even if the idea is great, it feels obligatory instead of empowering.

He already knew. He just hadn't done it.

Here's the part that stings a little if you're the leader: you are not the smartest person in the room. Your team is. All of them, combined, know more about the actual problem than you do alone, sitting in your office building a plan by yourself.

The plan wasn't the problem. His plan was probably good. But a good plan handed down doesn't get the same thing from people that a plan they built gets. One is compliance. The other is ownership.

He didn't need a better idea. He needed to put the problem down in front of his team and let them find one.

Next time you've got the answer, try holding it for one meeting. Put the problem in front of the people it affects. Ask how they'd solve it. See what comes back.

The ACE Assessment can help you see where you default to solving instead of asking, especially under pressure, when solving feels faster. 138 questions, 20 minutes, then a full hour with me to walk through what it shows.

Take the ACE Assessment → https://ace.bethoughtly.com/

In your corner,

Allison