Lean Business Tips #54 – Don’t tell them, how to do it.

As a team leader or manager, your job is not to give solutions to every problem, but make sure your team members think scientifically and find out the solutions themselves.

You don’t need to tell people exactly how to do it. Rather, you should make them understand the problem and involve them in the process of finding solutions.

You would be surprised to see that people will come up with their own solutions that would be better than your original idea. If people find the solutions the chances of implementing and completing the tasks are higher. 

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do, and let them surprise you with their results.

– George Patton

Telling your team, how to do something is actually a crime. If they struggle to find the solution,  as a leader your responsibility is to ask more questions and probe them to find the answers themselves without your involvement.