When I was chief program and strategy officer at a nonprofit, I had several dozen people in my org and six direct reports.
I had a really good team. But sometimes (and this may sound familiar) they came to me with issues. Or someone brought an issue to their manager, who brought it to their manager, who brought it to me.
In my earliest days as a manager, I was confused about my job. I initially thought it was to solve problems, not build a team of problem solvers. By the time I was an executive, I knew better. But there is one tool I wish I’d had.
When the same kind of issue or pain point came up a few times, I would often get everyone in a room and ask:
- What is the problem?
- What is everything we can think of doing about it?
- Which options are most viable?
The team usually figured something out. Because they were closer to the issue, their solution was almost always better than what I would have come up with. Those three questions were useful.
But I should have better equipped my people to answer them before the issue ever got to me in the first place.
Dan Martell describes one way to do this in his book Buy Back Your Time. He calls it 1-3-1. Before a team member brings a problem to their manager, they bring:
- 1 clearly defined problem
- 3 possible solutions
- 1 recommendation
Recently, an executive director client told me that she felt like her team brought her a lot of unsolved problems. It was cutting into her ability to focus on strategy and the work only she could do.
I shared the 1-3-1 framework. As Martell says, a problem well defined is a problem half solved. She quickly found that sharing the framework with her team and setting the 1-3-1 expectation helped.
A few months in, she told me she had noticed two changes. First, she had more bandwidth for strategy and clear thinking, which is hard to find while putting out small fires all week. Second, her team was taking more ownership. They were getting better at defining problems, considering tradeoffs, and trusting their own judgment.
I wish I’d known about 1-3-1 when I had a large team. If you try it, I’d love to hear how it goes.
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