No Problem Without a Solution

Posted on Monday, September 3, 2007 by Frank Roche

My first significant boss had a saying when we were solving some particularly difficult polymer physics challenge: No problem without a solution.

What he meant was, “Don’t bring me a problem and think I’ll be the one to solve it. Bring me possible reasons why and alternative approaches to the issue.” That helped me hone my critical thinking, and was a great benefit in my maturing as a professional. It’s a mantra I repeat still.

So, I was struck by a BBC article about a Russian mayor “who has issued a list of excuses that he will not tolerate from civil servants.”

Alexander Kuzmin, mayor of Megion in western Siberia, said that officials must stop using phrases such as “I don’t know” and “it’s lunch time”.

Mr Kuzmin said city officials should help improve people’s lives and solve their problems, not make excuses.

I’m not big on excuses. In my business, things need to get done. If I ever get to meet Mayor Kuzmin, I’m going to tell him “spasiba.” That’s “thank you” in Russian.

User Comments

John Hunter

Sep 13th, 2007

I understand that most managers feel that their employees should not bring them problems. Instead, expressed in the most positive way, they should fix things or bring possible improvements. However I think that is poor management.

I understand there may well be more detail than you provide that adds a more sensible (but more complex) reaction that stated in your post about your situation. However, there are many example, of bosses that expect there people not to bring them “bad news” not to bring them “problems” and that attitude is exactly wrong in my opinion.

What they are saying then is, if you know of a problem but don’t know of a solution I would rather have my company continue to have that problem than admit some of my staff don’t know how to fix it (and then have to deal with it myself – maybe then having to accept responsibility for results instead of just blaming you if I am never told and there is a problem later…). I think that is setting exactly the wrong tone to set.

Employees should fix things. They should bring solutions to managers to improve things that might be out of their ability to fix. But if they know of a problem and not a solution and a manager tells the employee they don’t want to be brought problems – I don’t want that manager.

If an employee never learns how to find possible solutions themselves that is not a good sign. But it is much, much better to bring problems to managements attention than to fail to do so because they know the manager thinks that doing so is weak. It is that attitude that is weak, in my opinion.