Innovation organization development team building expert michael cardus

We all have problems. Every team has problems. Every organization has problems. I have yet to meet a manager yet who doesn’t have problems…

The fantastic thing about problems is there are just as many solutions – some you found and others to look for.

Working to overcome the psychological inertia stuckness where you feel that you are on the only one or team with this specific problem is often all you need to work to find that one small step closer to your solution.

How do you move a known problem into a solution?

Try asking the following questions;

  1. What is it that we need to solve?
  2. Who else may have similar problems?
  3. How could we find out what they did to solve their problem?
  4. What about the other guys solution can we try here?
  5. What changes to the solution is needed?
  6. What is one thing we can change and see what happens?
Does this work? Do you have an example?

When working with a University where people were stealing maintenance hole covers, we determined that people were stealing the maintenance hole covers and most likely selling the metal for quick cash; this was later confirmed by a phone call and visit a Scrap Metal Dealer & Recycler.

We went through the questions and split the team into two groups tasked with doing some research and reporting back on what other universities, companies, townships, etc., may have had similar problems and what they did about it.

The two teams met, and both shared results. One team, by just googling, found a town that had a similar problem, and they contacted the town’s public works department. That town’s solution was to fill the missing maintenance hole covers with a hard plastic polymer maintenance hole cover. The University found a local manufacturer of these maintenance hole covers, and the solution was found, TAA DAA!

The solution is there, and with a couple of google searches, you can create a Solution-Bank of possible ideas.

What do you think?

What problems do you currently have that other people have already solved? Do you have an example of when you found a solution to a problem your company, team, or you had and some minor changes implemented into your solution?