Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You wait for the report.
You decide not to tackle the situation yourself. Instead, you think it
might be easier to handle if you just wait for the report from people who
aren't in the plant every day.
Your approach has not impressed your co-workers. They look to you for leadership,
and you are not leading! They feel that you'd rather deal with third-party
strangers than with your own colleagues.
While the report will provide important information, there's no need to
wait for it. By communicating in a tactful way, you can gather a lot of vital
information yourself.
"Everything I do, I just assume the people who are doing their jobs have
the answer," says industrial engineer Craig Stevens.
"My job is to get results by providing the tools, facilitating problem
solving, and bringing the solution out of the people involved. So, I'd start
there. I'd start asking questions before I get the report. My goal is to find
the solution as a team -- we'd work on it together. I want this solution to
be their solution, not my solution. We are not looking for blame.... Furthermore,
I keep this from happening again.
"Once you have a problem, you communicate with everybody you can, just
like trying to solve a crime," Stevens adds. "Of course, you don't look at
it as a crime, you just look at it as, 'This system is broke.' Then you investigate
-- how can we fix the problem?"