Tina Lewis Rowe

Solve Your Own Problems

Solutions to the work problems of others always seem rather obvious!

I often bring to class the behavioral, performance or interpersonal questions that I receive through email or on the Workplace Doctor’s site.  I put the question (with identifying characteristics changed) on a PowerPoint slide, and the class discusses responses. Similar things happen every time I go through this process.

First, as participants silently read the questions, many can’t keep themselves from responding verbally in some way.  They groan in frustration or irritation, or they laugh, shake their heads in disbelief or shout out their immediate response to the question.

Second, in almost every case, the solution to a problem the writer thinks is almost unsolveable, seems obvious to the participants in the class. Nearly always someone will start his or her response with, “Good Grief! All he has to do is……………..” Or, “I can’t believe she has to write and ask someone about that!”

Third, during class or at break time, some of those same people talk about an almost unsolveable problem they have–and the solution seems very obvious to others and to me. Sometimes as one person walks away, another will essentially say to me, “I can’t believe he doesn’t see what to do about that! Now…let me tell you about my problem….”

Work problems of others always seem more easily solved than our own, because we are not part of them. We don’t have to deal with the culture, relationship histories, and other realities of the situations. We think of solutions from the viewpoints of our own styles and wonder why others haven’t tried those approaches. Most of all, I have noticed that it is easy to suggest strong, straightforward action by other people, even though we are not strong and straightforward about our own work problems.

Start the New Year by solving some of your own problems.

1. If you have an ongoing problem with someone or some situation, put yourself in an outsider role and ask yourself for advice. It might help you to do what I sometimes suggest–write the problem using fictional names.

2. Another way to get an overview of the problem is to write it from the viewpoint of the key players involved. It may be helpful to think about what the other people are telling their confidantes when they ask for advice about dealing with you!

3. Describe The Gap. Make three columns and label them. The lefthand column is What Is. The center column is What I Want. The Righthand column is What I Must Do.

4. Break the problem situation into specific issues. Then, for each issue, write what would be realistically preferable. (Don’t assume the entire office must revolve around your preferences. But if something interferes with work or is inappropriate or harmful, you are right to ask for change or adjustment.)

5. In the third column, list specific actions you will be required to do to at least start the process of improvement. This reminds us that if we have a problem we need to take responsibility for it, rather than hinting around and hoping someone braver and stronger will rescue us.

Your required action may be to gain more support from others, to wait until another time, to find out more, or to document a bit longer. Or, you may need to write a formal complaint letter, say something specific to someone about their actions, complain higher up the chain, move to another assignment or quit. You are only writing those actions now, you don’t have to actually do them–but it is useful to confront what it will take personally to make things better.

6. Decide which of the actions you are willing to do and what is something you won’t do, given your style or the situation. (It is almost never a case of can’t do, it’s won’t do.) It is good to know what you won’t do. That way you are not the victim, you have made a choice.

7. Do what you can do. That is probably the best advice for any problem. Once you have decided the specific things that make a situation a problem for you and have determined what you can appropriately and correctly do,  move toward the solution by doing what you can do until the problem is solved, or until you can truthfully say you have done many specific, appropriate things at every level in the organization, and have exhausted every possible resource for solving the problem.  At least then, you can decide where to go from there.

The Bottom Line: If you have an ongoing workplace problem, make a commitment to either solve it or at least take strong action about it so there is no question about your views, opinions or preferences. At that point you may need to simply accept it as a negative part of work that you are willing to tolerate.

It will be easier to do those things if you look at your problem as if it belongs to a stranger and you are reading about it in a class. And, the next time you hear about a problem in a class, perhaps you will be more empathetic!

December 26th, 2008 Posted by TLR | Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development, Supervision and Management | 5 comments