This article has been accepted for publication in the January 2005 issue of Executive Branch, the newsletter for the Maryland Society of Association Executives

Unraveling The Puzzle Of Solving Problemss
By Barbara Brown, PhD

How good are the people you work with at finding ways to streamline processes, increase sales, or reduce complaints? Hopefully great because these are everyday workplace problems. To solve them, workers must know how to do things like determine root causes of problems, develop contingency plans, and track the impact of solutions.

Unfortunately, workers do not always know or possess all the critical skills required to effectively solve problems. The end result is workers do a poor job of developing and implementing solutions. You can enhance the problem solving capabilities of the people you work with by doing two things. First, you have to identify which skills contribute to effective solutions. Second, and most importantly, you have to identify how those skills will help your organization and the worker.

Below are five critical problem-solving skills and ways you can link those skills to the practices and people in your organization:

If you would like a list of my 34 Ways To Link Problem-Solving To Employee Performance, send an email to Barbara@DrBarbaraBrown.com.

1. “You said that you want to learn more about the kind of projects other people in the organization are involved in (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the individual). You can do that if you take the time to investigate how this problem impacts other stakeholders in our organization (your desired problem-solving behavior).”
   
2. “Let’s look at all the viable options before settling on a solution (your desired problem-solving behavior). That way, we will have several possibilities for solving the problem (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the organization).”
   
3. “If you take the time to identify the pros and cons of solving problems (your desired problem-solving behavior), you might be able to develop solutions more quickly (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the individual).”
   
4. “If we want to be successful, we have to make sure that our solutions offer a long-term rather than a short-term fix (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the organization). We can do that by taking the time to determine the root causes of our problems (your desired problem-solving behavior).
   
5. “The fact that you always develop a step-by-step action plan when solving problems (your desired problem-solving behavior) means that you don’t overlook any critical steps (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the organization). This approach also helps you solve problems more quickly (how desired problem-solving behavior will impact the individual).”

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