Words of Wisdom to My Younger Self: our new mini series

?? If you’ve hidden a box of chocolates or your favourite biscuits from the rest of your household, I’d agree that knowledge is power and you’re definitely winning ???

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However, in work situations when someone has all the knowledge it can have a negative effect and you often see some patterns forming:

• One person becomes a bottleneck where others need their input to make decisions or make progress
• People don’t feel empowered to make decisions and this can spread into other aspects of their work
• New ideas and innovation suffer which could impact the organisation’s ability to be competitive
• There’s a risk of valuable knowledge being lost when that person leaves
• Projects and progress grinds to a halt when that person is absent
• People become disengaged as they are unable to develop
• That person is at risk of overworking and burnout

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?? If you do find yourself in this situation and the above seems familiar, here are some steps to break the cycle:

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? Set expectations.? Let your team know you’re trying something different and share the advantages of learning to problem solve on their own:

• they can make faster decisions
• they can work at their own speed
• they can learn more in the process

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? Pause.? If you are asked a question, take a moment to think if this is something they could find out on their own and encourage them to do so, but let them know you are there to talk it through.? Ask them a question to help them get to the answer.

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? Take a coaching approach.? Ask them questions to give them a helping hand to finding the solution.

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? Collaboration. ?Are there other people who could support them if they can’t solve it alone?? You could advise them that another team member has knowledge in this area.? This is not to pass on the question to others, but to encourage them to work together or to think about how others in the team work.

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? Evaluate. ?Once they have the answer, work with them to see how they came up with the answer.? This will help their solving process in the future.

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?? If you find yourself in a situation where someone else seems to know information that you need or want to know, you can follow these steps to learn more:

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? Set expectations.? Let this person know that you would like to save them some time in the future and have the additional knowledge so you can do this without consulting them first.

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? Pause.? Do you know this?? Have you asked before?? Could you make a good guess or a first draft?? Have you received an email on this before that you could refer back to?

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? Take a coaching approach.? Instead of asking them for the answer, could you give them the answer you have come up with and asked for any advice, tips or amends?

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? Collaboration.? Does another team member know this?? Could they give you the information and an explanation to how they know this?? Could you make some notes and next time ask if they would give you 5 minutes to run through it with you?

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? Evaluate. Once you have the answer, write down your thought process so you have something to refer back to next time.

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Good luck!