3 Easy Ways to Turn Staff Pointing Out Problems into Better Performance
Staff pointing out problems with initiatives, plans, activities and solutions can be really frustrating, annoying and sap team morale. Employees who always point out what is wrong can be – for example – subtle underminers, insecure, or attempting to deflect blame for errors or substandard work. Let negativity get out of hand – where team members become more and more negative – and your team’s motivation and performance will start dropping which is bad news for any manager. Negativity, left unchecked, has a nasty habit of spreading and getting worse.
3 Easy Ways to Turn Staff Pointing Out Problems into Better Performance
- Create Clear Boundaries
- Always Bring Solutions
- Build a Collaberative Problems Solving Culture
- 6 Actions for Minimising Negativity in People and Teams
Staff pointing out problems is not all bad, especially when you turn it to your advantage. Why staff point out problems is really important. In my experience, there are four broad categories I consider before deciding what action to take:
- Staff covering for their own character flaws – insecurities, feeling threatened etc
- Staff deflecting attention from themselves or their work
- Employees subconsciously crying out for help
- Staff genuinely seeking to help by spotting what could go wrong
Today we are touching on what to do with each category as a manager, so you get the best from your team, increase overall team performance AND have an enjoyable place for everyone to work in.
At the end, I share 6 actions that I have found invaluable to stopping excessive negativity in individuals and teams particularly for those covering character flaws or deflecting attention from themselves or their work.
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Podcast
I was sitting on a fast train, watching the countryside go by, surrounded by commuters like me on their way home after a long week. The train was quiet, a few people tapping away on their laptops, most trying to relax. My brain was on overdrive.
I had an exhausting first week listening to my new team tell me all about this problem and that problem. Who wasn’t pulling their weight. Which ones kept making mistakes. Who was not getting on with whom. I felt I had a list of problems a mile high, the team was expecting me personally to sort them all out and I had little idea of what to do about half of them. It felt like mission impossible.
It was at that point I made a decision about what was going to happen on Monday morning onwards. I would go all out to put into practice three initiatives to turn staff pointing out problems into a collaborative team helping themselves.
Six months later, the team had gone from a siloed almost silent group to a much more collaborative team with the hum of voices and good natured banter. The team solved most of the day to day problems and I had a very manageable list of the tougher problems. The team were easily beating targets, and it was fun to be at work. I turned problems into a team responsibility rather than just a leader responsibility.
Firstly, reduce destructive negativity with clear boundaries
There many good reasons for employees pointing out problems, with some being:
- A desire for improvement
- Sense of responsibility
- A way of helping others or the team to be more successful
You want team members to continue to look for and point out problems, where doing so is helpful to others or to improving team results. i.e. they are serving others rather than just themselves.
There are plenty of reasons for team members pointing out problems where they are only serving themselves. Some examples are:
- Jealousy or when feeling threatened
- Deflecting blame onto others
- Desire for superiority or to dominate others
- To undermine others
- Having a fear of accountability
- Fear of failure
- To create a sense of control
And there are more. Left unchecked, these behaviours are destructive to team culture, make the working environment unpleasant through to outright toxic and will reduce team performance. Any of these outcomes will reduce the job security of the team manager. Not what you want.
[Watch a free webinar explaining exactly how to remove people problems in teams quickly, fairly and effectively]
Actions to Take
The actions I suggest you take to improve what problems are pointed out and how staff behave towards each other are:
- Communicate clearly what behaviours are acceptable and which ones are not. The best test I know is to ask if the behaviour or communication is intended to help others or not.
- Whenever you encounter unacceptable behaviour, take immediate action. This is more important than repeating verbal and written communication of expectations.
- Ask team members who always point out what is wrong to communicate the issues in private rather than in public or in team settings
- Ask those bringing “self-serving” problems to explain how they are helping improve team performance and culture.
Keep repeating these behaviours, combined with the next two approaches and team members will stop bringing problems to you for negative unconstructive reasons.
Secondly, with staff pointing out problems, ask them to bring a solution
Asking staff to bring solutions with the problems they spot has a ton of benefits for them, you and the team. The key ones being:
- Staff members take more responsibility for team success
- Team members build better problem solving skills
- You have less problems to solve personally, giving you more time to focus on the challenging problems
- Team performance usually increases with better team capability and ownership
Building problem solving skills in teams takes time and coaching effort on your part. This is an investment to REDUCE the time and effort you need to spend in the future while getting better team results.
Start expecting team members to provide solutions for low impact problems for which you can solve easily. i.e. you have previously implemented one or more very effective solutions. Then move them onto creating solutions for common problems with higher impacts. Then to unusual problems with low impact and finally to unusual problems with high impact.
This progression will build their confidence and skills while keeping low the risks of damaging mistakes being made.
I suggest you ask your team members to work out a practical solution to the problem and then you can either approve their solution, or you can work with them to come up with a better solution. Coach them so they learn. Over time you will find yourself doing more approving and less coaching and then needing to be involved with less problems. Think about how much time and effort that would save you each week.
Always ask team members to bring solutions with the problems they spot.
Thirdly, work to foster a collaborative problem solving culture in the team
When you have a problem solving culture in your team, your team members will, either individually or in small groups, solve most of the common problems the team encounters without needing your help. This is brilliant for you, good for their skills development and definitely stops other team members pointing out problems without bringing ideas for solutions.
Encourage team members to get together to solve problems. You might start facilitating these sessions. Then you might review the solutions before implementation. You might then create frameworks so team members solve and implement solutions for certain problems without needing review or permission from you.
For employees who always point out what is wrong, you can give them a special job in those groups. Ask them to work to spot the problems in what the other team members are proposing and help the team mitigate these issues. Explain the value of this role to the other team members. Setting this up maximises the use of the individual’s problem spotting ability for the benefit of the team and the solutions being created.
You could also take the step of training other team members in how to get the best from overly negative people or those staff who always point out what is wrong.
6 actions for minimising the impact of negativity in people and teams
The human brain is a brilliant filter. When you are looking for things that will go wrong, you are very likely to find them. When you are looking for things that will go well, you will find them. To turn this to your advantage, ask individuals questions that get them looking for the positives. “Looking at this solution, what elements give you confidence that it will deliver what we need as expected?”
If individuals are feeling threaten because colleagues are doing a good job, look for the areas that are worth praising and praise them in private and/or public.
If individuals fear accountability, the provide them reassurance about what will happen if they make mistakes and make sure you treat mistakes as a learning experience not a reason to punish.
When individuals feel out of control, give them practical areas that they can control and be responsible for. Having areas they do control should help them feel a bit happier dealing with the areas they don’t control.
When employees point out the problems in other people’s work to put them down, take them aside and tell them this type of behaviour is not acceptable. Pointing out problems needs to be about lifting the team up not putting colleagues down. Escalate your actions if needed.
If staff try to use problems and mistakes as a way to undermine, put down, bully or any other damaging behaviours then take immediate action to stop them behaving in this way.
In short, support positive behaviours that help the team and individuals and discourage damaging behaviours that harm the team or individual with all the tools you have available.
in summary
Team members who always point out what is wrong are frustrating, draining and add to your problems as a manager. Those that are constructive when pointing out problems can also be really useful in improving solutions, projects and team performance.
Try to expand the responsibility for solving problems from just the leader to include all team members. Match problem solving ability to the problem type and difficulty and be on hand to support, help and build skills in your team.
Take these 3 approaches to turn staff pointing out problems into better performance and you will have a much easier and more enjoyable life as a manager.
- Reduce destructive negativity with clear boundaries
- Ask staff to bring a solution with the problem they have spotted
- Foster a collaborative problem solving culture in the team
Don’t forget to take a look our resources section to help you reduce the problems you personally have to solve while increasing the performance of your team.
If you have any questions on “3 Easy Ways to Turn Staff Pointing Out Problems into Better Performance”, please email me on support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
I love people who point out problems – with anything. Using these techniques, it does not take long to get them creating solutions with the problems they bring. This is brilliant. It saves a ton of work for yourself (assuming the solutions are okay or better) AND it teaches very valuable skills.
A perfect Win-Win.
Teaching problem solving skills to your team, especially when they do complex work and need to solve problems, is a very high value activity for a manage and leads directly to increased team performance (which often keeps going up). Make the time to teach problems solving skills and don’t put up with negativity in the team.
Jess
Gain Management Expertise and Confidence Quickly
Build the management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance. Take a look at our courses.
