What is your number one challenge? Well the majority of the people I meet are saying on only thing. Time. There is, never was and never will be enough of it.
When you analyse time with many business owners like you. And what steals your time, the most frequent response is interruptions. Unscheduled interruptions. In other words other people, stealing your time and focus.
Are you guilty of falling in to the trap of being the Chief Problem solver in your business though?
Are your team coming to you so often that you can’t count the number, everyday. Asking questions. Seeking answers. One query at a time?
Are you simply fielding problems for your team, and finding that your own priorities get moved aside, in the chaos?
Here’s something to do right now. Get a blank piece of paper and write down the advantages to you and more importantly to your business of YOU being the Chief Problem Solver?
Now write down the disadvantages, to YOU and your business.
My guess is that the page is weighted heavily on the disadvantage side. And your thinking to yourself but how do you solve this problem. And get your team to do the work.
Well the answer is easy, but the solution is hard.
Let me explain.
Numerous research projects have clearly shown that directive leadership ( i.e. when you tell people what to do and how to do it) gets you a 1 in 3 chance of a satisfactory response. 33% return on your time invested. Not bad.
However using a “coaching” approach ( which is asking for input, and getting people to solve their own problems themselves), gets you a 70% response rate.
You can give me 70% any day and I’ll take it. But there is a catch.
It takes longer.
My experience may help explain this.
Defaulting to a “tell” mode is easy. And I took to it with ease. Running a business which seemed at times to be running faster than us, meant making decisions quickly.
Having a large team of people, most of whom were relatively new to the business as we were growing, meant growing demands on my time.
When someone asked, I told.
When someone had a query, I gave them the answer.
When someone had a problem, I solved it for them.
Yes in other words I was a poor leader, but was I untypical?
The consequence was obvious and damaging, both to me personally and the business. My day simply was consumed with interruptions. I never took the time to really explain, to question, to probe and to get my team to think things through.
It would have taken longer to do so. And it lead to a dependency. A dependency on me.
I had great people that in effect I had trained not to think for themselves. They weren’t to blame. I simply did what seemed to be the best thing at the time. The quickest thing. Either do it myself or tell them what to do.
Are you in this situation yourself? Are you the Chief Problem Solver?
An ability to solve problems is a terrific attribute, but beware.
Learn to take a little extra time and get your team involved, by resisting the temptation to get back to your own work. And get your team to solve it themselves. To learn, to think, to rationalise. In other words “coach” them a little. You’ll be amazed by the results over the longer term.
This takes a lot of trust but it is essential. When I have analysed where people spend their time in the week, up to 50% of it is taken up in unscheduled interruptions. 50%. Wouldn’t you like to take this time back?
In my case the results were dramatic. I moved from 7 day a week where I was taking calls, answering emails, handling operational issues, to 5 days. Other people simply got on with doing their jobs. And they were better than me at solving those problems. Win Win for the team. And Win Win for you if you take action.
Actions;
Starting today, work on your awareness of the extent of the interruptions you get.
Then start to review how you reacted to these interruptions. What percentage of your time were you Chief Problem Solver. What percentage were you leading or training?
Start the habit of asking your team, how they would solve their problems. Start trusting others to do the work you do, with great guidance from you.
Start standing back from doing to orchestrating.
Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.
