The employee of tomorrow should bring problems, not solutions – A plea for the PROBLEM.

This title may be something of a surprise and on its own might cause some readers to roll their eyes or even frown disapprovingly. The intention in my choice of title is to engage the emotions and to get your full attention for a thought that has preoccupied me for some time and which I would like to share with you here. I look forward to an exchange of opinions!

My professional career in human resources began in an area in which superiors were often heard repeating the mantra that employees should approach them not with problems but with solutions. Those who present solutions are seen as doers, while problems are only put forward by those unwilling or unable to solve them.

I took this message to heart and have always tried to live up to this ideal. Some years ago, I declared this maxim – raised by many to the level of dogma – to be my guiding principle. It was internalized and preached to employees and executives alike. Throughout these years, I became convinced that keeping to this maxim might (at least to some extent) underpin my own professional success. Moreover, I believed that constant chatter about problems was merely an expression of a lack of solution orientation or competence, and I found it annoying or quite simply unnecessary. So far, so wrong!

By no means do I want to be seen as belittling the veracity of the “solution-oriented approach”. However, it has always been a source of irritation that this term and an almost compulsive focus on the solution has, in my view, hampered and in the worst case obstructed the necessary and detailed consideration of the problem itself. Against our present landscape, the ability to describe a problem clearly and in its full scope, to get to the heart of something and to quickly grasp the possible impacts on its environment (e.g. task, project, team or organization), is extremely important.

"Only those who analyze the problem in detail will ultimately find the right solution."

We live in the much-cited VUCA world – a world that is also high-speed, increasingly interconnected and digitized. In such an environment of complex processes and interrelationships, an attitude in which it is customary to turn away from problems is particularly problematic for three reasons:

Firstly, it promotes a culture of sweeping under the carpet

If you hear from a superior that you should not put forward problems but only solutions, the subtext is that of all the problems you encounter, you should only commit to those for which there is a supposed solution. In contrast to simple problems, it is in the nature of complex problems for the connection between cause and effect to be unclear, whereby the solution and/or path to the solution is far from evident at the outset. At this point, even calling in the experts is often no help at all. There are no immediate solutions for complex problems, with a corresponding risk that in the worst-case scenario, the employee will simply sweep them under the professional carpet.

Secondly, it creates a culture of demotivation

Recognizing problems but not immediately having a solution to hand is a situation that is likely to evoke stress in most people. At the beginning, this stress is positive: it activates resources and encourages the urgency that is required to solve the problem. The members of a team will discuss, hypothesize, test things out and work together on a solution.

But if the maxim applies that unsolved problems should not be discussed in the presence of superiors, then this stress will transform into frustration in even the most committed employee. When your best minds see and know what it takes to find a solution but are unable to pursue this path openly, they will say goodbye to the task, to their superiors and eventually to the company.

Thirdly, it brings about a culture of missed opportunities

Companies that want to be competitive must encourage a working environment that permits experimentation and makes space for different approaches. The solutions that make the difference in a competitive world are rarely ingenious flashes of inspiration from individuals. Most of the time, such solutions are the product of teams working towards a common goal; the application of collective intelligence. If the person in charge makes it clear that the desired objective is detailed problem analysis, then this will nurture collective problem-solving skills. If this is not permitted, the team will be deprived of its ability to identify new problems and to make the most of the opportunities that they present. The result is a blindness not only to problems but to organizational deficiencies, which is incompatible with innovative ability.

Foster free and open exchange

Increasingly, our complex working world presents problems to us that will not be overcome by immediate solutions and which exceed the intellect of any single individual. And so, let us encourage our teams to see problems as shared opportunities and to grasp and overcome them as such. To this end, what is required is not just a focus on a solution-oriented approach but, before this, a culture of free and open exchange.

 To round things off, an apt quote from Albert Einstein:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”