It is the client who owns the problem and the solution. My job is to create a relationship in which the client can get help. It is not my job to take the client’s problems onto my own shoulders, nor is it my job to offer advice and solutions in a situation that I do not live in myself. –Edgar Schein

We are all in service positions. As a manager your job is to offer services to subordinates to complete their work. Be it coaching, training, motivation, resources, discipline, delegation of tasks, mentoring, etc… As a Team Development & Leadership coach & consultant you are in a service position. Be it systems development, coaching, skill-training, advisement, process-effectiveness, etc…

Often we are too quick to offer help, and be the Hero that we think we are!

This has happened to me several times. A client hires me to coach them on their Managerial-Leadership skills…I offer what I think is an obvious solution (too quickly), they don’t implement it immediately. Several months later on a follow-up visit they tell me what is better and it is the same solution I offered them months ago!

“The client owns the problem and the solution”

Your job is to “create a relationship in which the client can get the help” they need, at the right time, in the right way, with the right resources.

On to the Inquiry:

• In what ways might your effort to help, be doing the opposite?
• How would you know?
• How might you treat the person you are helping, if you really believed that it is not “my job to offer advice and solutions in a situation that I do not live in myself”?
• What indicators would you see, in yourself, that your help was proving useful?
• If you were seeking help, what would you need from the other person in order for the interaction to be useful?
• In what ways could you explain that to this person? What else? What else?
• In the past, when seeking help from your manager, peer, team-mate, etc… how was the help given, that made you find the help useful?
• Can you do that again?

michael cardus is create-learning

image by aussiegall

From a discussion and blog comments back and forth with friend and TeamBuilding colleague Anne Thornley Brown of Executive Oasis, then to a Girl Scout program I volunteered some time with for friend Tracy Diina…

Got me thinking about Team Building & Leadership how to make an impact;

Making teams and leaders better, through improved team processes and individual effectiveness. Resulting in increased productivity and people who love the work they do.

Facilitating team development programs can be tough.  The people don’t have to LOVE the team building, in reality a percentage will hate anything you do. What matters is did you deliver, facilitate whatever you call it – the results that were expected and that you promised.

Being involved in this field of experiential training and development for almost 20 years now I am still learning how to make teams and leaders better. Plus it’s still a mystery. 

Thinking about this and talking with TACC (the amazing Christine Cardus) I realized.

With teams and individuals I quickly find what THEY enjoy doing, what their strengths are and do more of that.

If I find they don’t enjoy what we are doing I STOP IT! and do something else.

That is the secret to facilitation.

Quickly find what works and do more of it. If something is not working, STOP IT! 

Resistance to the activity, facilitator, theories, application, etc… are all going to arise during your work. How you, as the facilitator handle that is what you are paid for. Generally you can respond in 1 of 3 ways.

• Resistance – you choose to fight the team and people and do what you think is best. Sticking to the agenda and program design.
• Knocked Down – you just fold and become a limp noodle, choosing to allow the resistance to take control of you and your facilitation.  
• Find what works – you are able to understand the resistance and use it to your advantage finding the small wins and bright spots then building upon those.

I prefer to Find What Works, and that has worked really well for me.

How do you Find What Works?

This is where YOUR EXPERIENCE and knowledge to make decisions and solve problems is tested. This is where you have to turn the processing and reflection tools back onto yourself.

What do you think?

I’m sure you have met with resistance in your team building & leadership programs, how do you make it work? What tools and method do you use, or can you recommend to improve the the decision making and problem solving of us and yourself?

Plus if you are looking for a train-the-trainer team building program…check out what I have to offer—>click here.

michael cardus is create-learning

image by teamstickergiant

• SOLVED – 6 Steps to find your solution

For team development and coaching I use Solution-Focused Consulting & Training methodology.

The approach values simplicity in philosophy and language and aims to discover "what works" in a given situation, simply and practically. The focus on what’s wanted (not what’s wrong), what’s going well (rather than what’s gone badly) and practical progress (rather than explanatory theory) leads to a positive and pragmatic way to work with organizations and individuals. From SOLWORLD

Basic assumption:

• Problems DON’T EQUAL Solutions
• Solutions EQUAL Solutions
• If something is working DO MORE of it
• If something isn’t working STOP IT!
• The client is the expert
• There is always a time when this was not a problem
• Focus on present into future
• Organizations, Teams and People operate within systems…small changes to one part yield unexpected changes in others.

It is important that the solution to the problem be your own, because Your Solution Won’t Work for Me.

Below is a progression of coaching & feedback questions that I have been working on. Take some time with your team, manager, friend or by yourself and answer these questions.

With practice you will find what works for you.

SITUATION

o What has happened for you to know that a solution is needed?

o If you accomplish what you want to have happen, what will you be doing?

OBSERVER

o If your manager, partner, spouse, best friend, subordinate, child, whoever you want was to describe what you’re going through, how would they describe it?

o If I was to observe you working through your solution how would I know that you’re making progress?

LEVEL

o On a scale of 0 – 10 with 0 being you have some idea what to do with this situation; and 10 being you know exactly what to do – where are you on this scale?

o How do you know you’re at the number you chose? What’s working for you, that placed you there?

VALIDATION

o What have you already accomplished?

o Choose one thing that you already accomplished. What steps did you take to achieve that?

EXCEPTION

o Is any of your solution already happening, even just a little bit?

• What did you do to make that happen? Can you do more of that?

DECISIONS + DIRECTION

o Looking at what you’ve already answered, what was useful for you?

o What is one thing you can do in the next 90 minutes that will increase your progress?

What do you think?

Try the SOLVED method and remember that small changes will lead to unexpected results. 

michael cardus is create-learning

I have asked the same question to two different large team building & leadership groups this week. One group was Corporate HealthCare staff the other was High School teachers. Both groups developed great ideas and support that they need in order to be more effective in getting their work done.

With the HealthCare staff I asked What do you need from your patients in order to be more effective at getting your work done?

With the High School Teachers I asked What do you need from your students in order to be more effective in getting your work done?

Following the question, in both groups, we worked to define, create and develop continued training, coaching and consulting to work with the patients and students to make these ideas into reality.

On to the inquiry:

• Choose who you directly affect through your work, meaning who do you serve in your role. For health care group it’s patients, for teachers it’s students, for managers it’s subordinates, etc… The challenge may come if you work internally, for example an accountant within a company who doesn’t see the customer, think about it…
• Ask What do I need from them in order to be more effective in getting my work done? What else? What else?
• Is any of this happening already? Even a little?
• How did you manage to make that happen?
• What is the next step you can take to implement what you need to make your work more effective?
• When can we go-and-see what you have done?

Please share your responses and feedback.

michael cardus is create-learning

image by kevin dooley

Defining the goals of an organization and how your role contributes to that goal is tough and necessary.

Tough because as managers we think that everyone just knows…and sometimes we are not even all that sure ourselves.

Necessary because the decisions people make when faced with challenges and workplace complexity, are based upon the organizational goals.

You…make millions of choices a day about your work, all these choices are based upon what you think the goal of the company is, and how you think your work contributes to this goal.

This is why is must be made clear and consistent in words and action.

Next time you have your team together ask them;

1. What is the goal of this company? What are we in business for?
2. How does your work directly contribute to this goal?

Ask, then listen.

Depending upon what you hear you can educate, coach and inform the team as necessary.

What do you think?

Are the over-arching goals of your company really important to your day to day work?

michael cardus is create-learning

Before meeting with the Executive who will be accountable for the results of the Team Building & Leadership Consulting, Coaching, Workshop I am leading. Sometimes I send some questions for them to think about.

Below are some of these questions;

• * What is your longest time-frame for the goal you are tasked to complete?
• * What do you want the team to do, that they are not doing enough of already?
• * How will we know when they are doing enough of this?
• * If we can accomplish what you want the team to do more of, what value would would that have? think outside of ‘feel-good’ stuff. i.e. Increased efficiency in completion of work leading to faster completion of projects while still maintaining our current fee structure; can you put that into Dollars?
• * Now the feel-good stuff…and why does that matter?
• * Weird Question stay with me. – You leave work today, go home do whatever you normally do after-work, then you go to sleep. While you are asleep a miracle happens, and the current problems that you have identified are eradicated. BUT you have no idea that this miracle happened. You arrive at work, what is the first, tangible, objective thing that you would notice that makes you think “WOW! that problem is solved and work is better.
• * What is an example of one process / system that is operating above or at your expectations?
• * Who is in charge of that process / system?
• * If I was to ask the employees, What is one thing that the Leadership can do more of, to increase your effectiveness in completing your work? What do you think they would say?

michael cardus is create-learning

image by Neal.