Loading…
26
My old boss told me to stop solving problems and start making decisions, and I've never figured out if that advice was great or terrible
About 3 years ago I was a team lead at a logistics company in Columbus and my director pulled me aside after a rough project review. She said, "You're the best problem solver I have, and that's exactly the problem, you solve everything yourself instead of deciding and letting the team move." I was pretty ticked off at first, because I thought solving problems was literally my job description. But I started trying it, and instead of digging into every issue myself, I'd just pick a direction and tell people to run with it. Two things happened. My team got faster and started owning stuff without checking with me first, which was great. But I also made a few calls way too fast and we shipped a messed up batch to a client in Cleveland that cost us around $8,000 to fix, and my director's response was basically "that's the cost of learning to decide." So now I'm stuck in the middle. Do I go back to being the guy who digs into everything and slows things down, or keep making quick calls and eating the occasional expensive mistake? For people who got similar feedback, how did you find the line between moving fast and being reckless? Did your manager ever admit it when their advice backfired? Genuinely want to know if anyone else got told to "decide more, solve less" and what actually happened.
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
mark61110d ago
That $8,000 batch to Cleveland was not really the cost of learning to decide, that was the cost of not checking anything before deciding. Making quick calls and being reckless are two different things, and from what you wrote it sounds like your director never actually taught you where that line was. Ours admitted later that the "just decide faster" push went too far at our shop too, so you're not alone there.
8