Seven Tips for Creating a Solutions-Focused Team
Teams often don’t just naturally excel at solving problems. It’s human nature to find problems. However, it takes time, effort and practice to solve problems.
A solution-focused organization sets the scene for faster growth.
Group settings can enhance the habit to think negatively and focus on problems rather than solutions. While managers tend to see the greater vision, front-line workers tend to pay more attention to day-to-day details — which is often the more nitty-gritty work.
The Harvard Business Review suggests these seven tips to encourage a more solution-focused team:
- Reflect on your goal (of being more solution-focused): Determine any sources of opposition and where your team gets stuck or stressed.
- Talk to your team: Ask employees about their roadblocks and carefully listen to what they say, so you can address those problems.
- Set new norms: For example, start each meeting with a positive reflection or create a trigger word to keep the team on a solution-minded track.
- Play role model: Be the first one to share a potential solution and ask your team to follow suit. Respond in encouraging ways to all ideas to show your team that ideas don’t have to be perfect or fully developed.
- Bring in resources: Spark new ideas or bring up alternative solutions with outside resources like articles, a colleague from another department or an expert consultant.
- Deal with challenges: Acknowledge all ideas and solutions to validate and encourage your team’s viewpoint. When encountering resistance, ask questions to keep the dialogue going instead of ending the conversation. Create a “parking lot” where you place concerns that the team needs to circle back to.
- Reward positive behavior: Social affirmation is powerful in changing group behavior. Publicly acknowledge when people bring solutions to the table.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. It will take time and effort to transition to a solution-focused team, but these tips are a great start to get your team going in the right direction.
Resource: Is Your Team Solving Problems, or Just Identifying Them?, an HBR article by Rebecca Knight