Practices of Leaders Who Create Organizations Filled with Competent, Confident Problem Solvers

As organizations move along their continuous improvement learning paths, leaders at all levels are asked to show up differently. Some struggle to make the shift from being knowers, tellers, and doers to becoming teachers and coaches who develop others.

Leaders are typically highly accomplished in their chosen professions. They’ve studied and practiced for years to be excellent at what they do. Many are rewarded for those accomplishments by being promoted to higher leadership positions, often with responsibilities for which they might initially feel somewhat unprepared to do. Less than excellent. That can include feeling wobbly about how to lead by teaching and coaching others to develop an organization filled with competent, confident problem solvers.

Following are some specific approaches many leaders with whom I’ve worked over the years have found helpful as they put daily intention toward developing themselves to be leaders of problem solvers.

Provide Direction rather than Being Directive.

Strong leaders are skilled at setting clear direction – at stating what’s to be accomplished by when, giving parameters for what’s in/out of scope, indicating what resources are/are not available, and stating performance expectations. More effective leaders set direction, then step out of the way so those closest to the work can become better critical thinkers – to learn to solve messy, recurring problems for themselves. Strong leaders set a cadence to regularly check-in on progress, and ask questions to provide more clarity, offer support, and challenge employees to think deeper.

Setting direction is quite different than being directive. Sometimes for well-intended reasons, after giving direction, leaders become directive by telling people how to do the assignment. When that happens, we don’t know what people have truly learned for themselves vs. being compliant. Compliance typically doesn’t result in learning, and quite often is experienced as disrespectful.

Create Conditions for Learning.

People of all ages – including the 3-year-old who insists “Let me do it myself!” – learn best by digging in for themselves, from learning by doing.

For that to happen in the workplace, the most respectful thing a leader-as-teacher-and-coach can do is create conditions for learning. To allow time for A3 Thinking (instead of quickly stating “Do The A3”). To have time for trial and error. To have opportunity to partner with others. To be self-directed. To have agency to pull for teaching and coaching as needed. To receive well-considered questions that challenge their current thinking. To be recognized for their good efforts.

Practice Asking Effective Questions.

Years ago, my teacher John Shook said that Toyota leaders who have responsibility for developing problem solvers hold the following mindset:

“Until I heard where your thinking was at, I didn’t know what question you needed.”

The mindset of a teacher creating the conditions for learning, and meeting each learner where they’re at. I learned decades ago in the College of Education that the most fundamental and powerful skill for creating those conditions is the practice of asking effective questions in support of learners.

Better questions in support of the Problem Owner’s thinking and learning:

• Require practice! Daily, intentional practice. Most of us feel quite uncomfortable and wobbly when we get started with this. Stay with it to get a little bit better every day.
• Follow thoughtful, genuine listening. Judy Sorum Brown, another of my teachers from years ago, taught me that “Getting ready to talk is not the same thing as listening.”
• Are asked after a pause. Pausing is respectful (and hard!) and gives the problem owner time to think. Practice silently counting to 10 after offering a question to allow time for thinking to happen.

And sometimes you’ll find what the problem owner needed at the moment was just the pause, rather than the next question. If after a pause they resume thinking aloud, let them do so. Be quiet, listen, and let them continue to think aloud. It’s always about their thinking, and not about your next question.

• Can at times allow the problem owner more time to think than this moment. Sometimes for as long as overnight, or a day or two. It keeps responsibility for the thinking with the person to whom it was assigned. Unless something will immediately fail in a harmful way, resist the urge to expect an answer immediately or to weigh in with your own thoughts.
• Are asked one at a time, rather than in rapid-fire fashion. Ask one question, then Stop. When you realize you’ve asked a series of questions one after another, Stop. Catch yourself. Say aloud you’re aware you’ve asked more than one question, then say here’s the one question I’d like to offer you.
• Are short in length. More effective questions are brief, typically not more than about 10 words. If you find yourself asking a long, rambling question – or explaining why you’re about to ask a particular question – this is a sign you’re doing the thinking with a question mark at the end. Stop, Pause, Think. Then ask it again much more concisely, in service to the problem owner.
• Are phrased in a way to not “lead the witness.” Learn to catch yourself when you ask a leading questioning. Stop, say “Let me start over,” pause to think, then try again. And again. Quite often it takes more than one attempt to ask a non-leading question.
• Are open-ended, and often begin with What or How.
• Cannot be answered Yes or No. When you ask a Yes or No question, the problem owner gives a response to your thinking. When you ask an open-ended What or How question, you set the condition for the problem owner to think.
• Are often much less likely to begin with Why. Beginning a question with Why, or asking Why as often as we have typically been taught to do, can unintentionally start to take the Problem Owner down a “certainty” path. They will too often tell you (or themselves) what you already think (vs. knowing with evidence) about why something happened.

The word Why can also make some people feel a bit defensive. Rather than asking Why quite so often, practice asking “What is happening…,” “How is it happening…,” “What caused it to happen…,” “What’s one reason…,” What’s another reason…,” etc. Doing so often leads to better evidence-based thinking.

• Can let the problem owner know they don’t need to have THE answer or be right. Questions such as “What’s one thought you have about that?” or “What else is on your mind about this?” simply invite more thinking. These two questions in particular often unlock new, important thoughts.

The specificity of each of these techniques is important. Practicing each technique with intention matters.

Recognize a “How would you summarize that for yourself?” learning moment.

For many of us, shortly after we’ve been promoted to our first manager level position, we attend a Manager 101 course. In that a course, we are taught to use the phrase “What I think I heard you say was…” to demonstrate active listening after someone we lead has spoken at length about something difficult or troubling. There are times when that is indeed a good thing to do, when it’s right to offer support and empathy, and perhaps to indicate you’ll take a next step management action. It has a managerial purpose.

That said, over time I’ve observed many instances when that practice is counter to the purpose of showing up as leader-as-teacher-and-coach. After a problem owner thinks aloud at length, resist saying, “What I think I heard you say was…” or “So let me summarize what you just said…” Though well-intended, more often than not, the leader unintentionally inserts a word or phrase not used by the problem owner, or a bit of their own thinking, into the summary. This results in a form of “leading the witness,” and often results in compliance with the leader’s phrasing. Instead, offer “You had a lot to say, how would you summarize that for yourself?” Your purpose in this learning moment is to remain in teacher-coach role. Your question keeps ownership for the thinking with the problem owner, and very often helps the problem owner clarify their own thinking.

Similarly, pay attention to the frequency with which you may say, “Help me understand…” This, too, unintentionally takes away focus from the problem owner’s understanding, and makes it about the leader’s understanding. Practice instead saying something along the line of, “Please say more about your understanding of…”

Practice Personal Improvement A3 Thinking.

Overall, how well do your leadership behaviors align with your desire to create an organization filled with problem solvers? What specific evidence do you have for the current condition of your daily leadership habits and the specific outcomes of those habits? How might a daily, intentional personal practice plan for more effective leadership behaviors help you narrow the gap from where you are today to the leader you aspire to be?

If you accept the hypothesis that each of us as a leader is a workplace “condition” that also requires improvement, then the structured framework of A3 Thinking can be helpful for personal improvement for leaders. With the use of guided questioning for both “left and right” side thinking, many have found the practice of Personal Improvement A3 Thinking to be key to learning to leverage their many strengths to align their behaviors with leading and creating an organization filled with competent, confident problem solvers.

Measure Improvement in Simple Ways.

If you choose to dig into any of these techniques, accept that you won’t nail it the first time. Or the second or third time! For many, these practices create discomfort and require hard work. Give yourself permission to be wobbly, and to be just a little bit better every day.

That said, how will you know if your intentions are leading to better? How will you set a self-reflection cadence that you will stick with? What are simple, evidenced-based ways to know plan vs. actual for yourself?

Simple ways some have found to measure their personal improvement efforts include:

• Use a post-it-note to make a hash mark each time you:
  • Catch yourself being directive after giving direction.
  • Get ready to talk/interrupt rather than listening.
  • Ask Yes/No rather than What/How questions in a meeting, a Go See, etc.
  • Pause for X number of seconds before asking a question.
  • Stop and start over after asking a series of rapid-fire questions.

You can do this yourself or ask someone else to be an “observation buddy” for you.

• Create a summary tally sheet for the weekly post-it-note hash marks. Some leaders have said that something resembling their kids’ chores list on the refrigerator at home was all they needed to keep their planned vs. actual in front of them.

(One leader I know posted her list on the refrigerator; her kids would regularly ask her how she was doing with her practice!)

• Get a Practice Buddy. Many find it easier to work on something they want to get better at if they find someone with whom they can buddy. Also, declaring your specific intentions to at least one other person increases the likelihood of following through on your practice.
• Consider telling those you lead what you’re trying to get better at as a leader. After they’ve observed your efforts, and when you’ve made it safe for them to give you candid feedback, many leaders find it helpful to get qualitative feedback evidence from those they lead.

I once heard former Toyota leader Isao Yoshino say the following about his responsibility to develop problem solvers: “My aim was to develop those I led by giving them a mission or target, and supporting them while they figured out how to reach the target. And as I was developing each person, I was developing myself as well.” His way of saying that has stuck with me. I encourage you to consider this mindset.

The practice of medicine. The practice of the cello. The practice of golf. Let’s also call it the practice of leader-as teacher-and-coach. Develop muscle for putting specific, daily intention toward practices that create conditions for learning. And when you follow through, you will find that as you develop your people, you are indeed also developing yourself.

What does a little bit better look like for you today, and all the days to come?