Problem not People

 The Engineer

The engineer was called to the plant floor. The machine he was hired to build wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. The machine was supposed to be making widgets, but it was making them into a hexagon instead of the traditional heptagon. The engineer winced as he looked at the machine. This wasn’t going to be an easy problem to solve. He was going to need to call a team meeting.

The team meeting started off the usual way. The other engineers launched into each other with insults, each blaming the other person for the problem. After an hour of shouting, everyone was angry and no one had any solutions.

The engineer asked his team to switch directions. He asked the team to come up with solutions, instead of talking about problems. The team obliged. Each person looked at someone else and began to instruct them on how they should behave so the problem could be fixed. After an hour of everyone telling the other person what to do, nothing got accomplished. They had a lot of good ideas, but they were all in disagreement as to which idea to use. They also had a lot of hurt feelings because each person felt like they were being singled out.

The engineer asked his team to take a break from talking and he explained how to approach the problem differently. Up until now, the team had been focusing on changing the people around them. The engineer proposed that the team focus instead on changing the machine.

The engineer walked to the whiteboard and asked everyone to brainstorm solutions. The rule for the brainstorming process was that no one was allowed to tell other people what they did wrong or what they needed to do differently. They were only allowed to talk about what the machine wasn’t doing and how to get it to do what they wanted it to do. One hour later, the team had several ideas written on the whiteboard.

Next, the engineer needed the team to decide which idea was going to be used. At first, the team members simply repeated their ideas. Each person increased volume and tone, repeating themselves over and over, and they explained their idea in greater and greater detail. After an hour a resolution was not made.

The engineer asked the group to stop talking again as he explained how he wanted them to discuss each item. The engineer asked the team to evaluate each item based on its merit. The discussion wasn’t to be a contest of wills. It was going to be a contest of merit, with the ideas being evaluated, not the willpower of the people. He asked the team to discuss how each idea could be useful and how each idea could fail. He asked the team to compare the efficacy of each idea to the other. After an hour, the team was able to rate the efficacy of each idea and pick an idea based on the probability that it had the highest chance for success.

Problem Solving not People Solving

Tiffany had a problem. She was a very busy person and the dishes were always overflowing in the sink. It didn’t matter how hard she tried to stay on top of them, she could never keep up. She tried making a chore list. She tried changing her schedule. With four children in the home and a husband, she just couldn’t seem to keep the dishes from piling up.

Tiffany and her husband had recently read “Marriage Meetings” by Marcia Berger and Almond Eastland (2014). She was waiting to bring up the problem in the marriage meeting. Tiffany already knew what her husband needed to do in order to fix the problem. She just had to figure out a way to say it to him where he would accept it.

During the marriage meeting, Tiffany delivered her carefully crafted message. She had waited for months to bring up this topic and she had a lot of harbored resentment that she was trying hard to keep in. Her harbored resentment made her words come out stiffer and more staccato than she had hoped, but she thought her presentation went well.

Tiffany had explained to her husband the reasonable steps he needed to take to fix the problem with the dishes. They were so reasonable anyone would have accepted them, but not her husband. All Jacob heard was, “All the hard work you have been doing to make me happy isn’t good enough.” It wasn’t what Tiffany actually said, but that was the message Jacob interpreted. After thirty minutes of semi-controlled conversation, the meeting ended and the problem wasn’t solved.

Tiffany waited until the next marriage meeting to approach the problem differently. This time, Tiffany didn’t offer a solution in her initial presentation. Instead, Tiffany identified the problem. She explained that she was overwhelmed with the dishes and wondered if she and Jacob could brainstorm some ideas about how to fix the issue. Jacob jumped at the opportunity to help his wife. He and Tiffany listed and explored several solutions and then examined each solution based on its merit.

Problem not People Logistics

When problem solving, the first step is to clearly define the problem. If I am feeling overwhelmed, the problem is not the people in the home. The people may end up being part of the solution, but they are not the problem. The problem is that I am overwhelmed.

Establishing a clear understanding of the problem allows multiple possible solutions to be created. For example, if a person is overwhelmed possible solutions can be to create a schedule, lessen the workload, adjust expectations, get more sleep, or ask for help. If the problem is “people need to help more” the only possible solution is people helping more.

The next step is to present the problem, not the solution, to the partner. For example, “Darling I am feeling overwhelmed, would you mind taking time tonight to help me figure out why I feel that way and how it can be solved.” If I presented the problem with the solution I would say, “Darling, I am feeling overwhelmed and I created this to-do list for you.” The solution being offered only has two possible outcomes, an acceptance or a rejection. If it is rejected, the invitation to brainstorm more solutions might not be accepted, since people are often in a bad mood after they have been told what to do.

Once the problem has been presented, my partner should be given a moment to think things through. I had all day to come up with solutions in my mind, so I’m ready to go with my ideas. This is the first time my partner is hearing this, so I need to be respectful and give her a minute to think about what I am asking. I also need to be open to hearing ideas different than the ones I thought of.

Once my partner and I have brainstormed and generated a list of ideas, the next thing that we need to do is to decide which of the ideas are best. We can do this by looking at each idea based on the merit, crossing off the ones that have less feasibility until we only have one option left.