5 Perspectives to SOLVE Team Problems

Navigating complex team issues is a common challenge for new managers. To address these challenges effectively, it is useful to think about the overall problem you are trying to solve. 

Here are five perspectives that can help frame the problem and give you clarity on what should be your priorities.

1️⃣ Start-up Perspective

When your team is confronted with an entirely novel problem, consider it from a start-up perspective. First, clarify the desired outcome over how you will achieve that outcome. You will figure the “how” later.  Then, encourage experimentation, exploration, and even making mistakes. Remember you are trying to solve something you’ve never encountered before and not all your solutions will work.

2️⃣ Turnaround Perspective

If your business metrics are declining and you are facing major problems then you need the turnaround perspective. Begin by candidly identifying underlying issues without letting egos get in the way. Sometimes it is hard to recognize or admit the thing that is not working.  Once you know what you need to fix, then focus your team on addressing that issue directly.

3️⃣ Accelerating Growth Perspective

When the goal is to increase production speed or quantity (or whatever metric is relevant), your focus needs to be on enhancing productivity and efficiency rather than finding something that is broken. Identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, offer additional training, and optimize resources to maximize output.

4️⃣ Realignment Perspective

Sometimes the product or service is not performing as well as expected. In this case, you need to consider realigning the work.  To do this, you need to check with your customers or clients and find out what is not working for them.  This can be done by conducting surveys, arranging focus groups, or simply just ask them what they want.  The goal is to align the product with what the customer truly wants.

5️⃣ Sustaining Success

Occasionally, the “problem” is no problem at all.  If the team is already doing well, your goal is to sustain their success.  No problem is not an excuse to do nothing. In order to keep a team functioning well, acknowledge and reward their achievements, provide developmental opportunities, and regularly to check with them to ensure they have everything they need to keep succeeding.

Once you have identified the overall perspective you need to take to solve the problem, you can then dig into the nuances and specific details.  You will likely discover there are aspects of the problem that will require new thinking (start-up), or fixing a broken part (turnaround), or maintaining the status quo (sustaining success).

Framing the problems in one of these five perspectives will give you an effective place to solve them.

What do you do to help get your head around team problems?