Solving Problems | Develop situational leadership Approach

Solving problems and leadership attitude

When we are faced with a situation, how we react to it will depend on our mental make-up. Will we intuitively act, or will we make a reasoned decision before acting? Will we take an analytical approach, or would we rather go by experience? Do we prefer to see the board picture, or do we like to break situations down into manageable bits? We tend to classify anything disagreeable or undesirable as a problem, be it the hot summer months or the wet rainy days, the inability to get up in morning or the difficulty of getting a good night's rest, or be in the phone ringing continuously or the phone not working at all.

The Problem with Problems

The first step in solving a problem is to first define what exactly is the problem. Situations may or may not be considered as problem depending on the time, palace, people and circumstances. Consider

The following situations with respect to time, place people and circumstances:

• Time: Price rise in the festive season may not be considered a problem but could lead to agitations at other times.
• Place: Drinking alcoholic beverages in a place where prohibition is religiously followed may be a serious problem, though it may be acceptable elsewhere.
• People: Calling parents by their first names may be acceptable in some cultures but taboo in others.

Circumstances: Cancellation of all trains in a flood situation is accepted with equanimity, but delay of a few trains in normal circumstances could cause an uproar.

From situations to problems

We are continuously being faced with situations, but not all situations are problems. The development of human thought is basically a process of classifying and cataloguing situations. Knowledge simplifies existence and transforms the complicated into the routine.

For Example, the cost of painting a house can be made into a routine arithmetical exercise of finding out areas and multiplying this by the rate of painting per unit area. Education is the process of indexing and classifying knowledge; firstly into board subjects like Mathematics, Science, Religion, History, then into sub-classifications like Algebra, Geometry and Arithmetic, and then into specific subjects like profit and loss, areas and dimensions.

Solving Problem, therefore, calls not only for skill to analyze and synthesis situations. But, more important, to handle the human issues involved of differing view points, approaches and objectives When the team encounters a problem, it will always have to do either with how is processes are operating or with some type of customer dissatisfaction.

Processes should operate to minimize waste and costs, while delivering defect-free outputs that meet customer needs and expectations. When things get in the way of that happening, the team has a problem. So the primary part of defining the problem has to do with understanding what about the process is causing a problem or what about the output is not satisfying the customer. Solving problems means just that-solving the problem so it doesn't recur.