One of the main forces that affect the most on a team’s energy, is involving people in sorting out and dealing with situations.
The wording is quite straightforward and I believe that most understand what it means.
So in this post, let me share my story.
I am a problem solver – and I like to move fast. So usually if I / we face with certain problems and I know how to solve it – I usually just proceed with it without much discussion.
So what I did previously, is I always try to solve everything by myself – unless it is something that I really don’t know how to solve it (Usually if I had issues with very deeply technical things – I would let my brother/sister to solve them).
Even though I managed to solve the problems fast, but a few issues arised:
- Of course I felt tired and frustrated because I felt that I have to do everything by myself (this is so plain negative thinking actually – other people wanted to help, but I didn’t give them the opportunity).
- Non inclusive community – my team would feel that I am the one who call all the shots, and they felt like they were not included in decision making process. This makes them felt like they are not part of the team. So here, it becomes like receiving instructions and carrying them – this lowered team energy level.
- The solution may not be the best – As I proceed with my own knowledge and experience without taking into consideration others’ knowledge and experiences.
This happened due to I felt the need to be in control in every different aspects in the business. However, by doing this, I was also becoming the bottleneck in the company.
Along the way, I tried to learn how to let go. It’s hard, but it is required for us to grow.
Letting go does not mean not caring. It is actually putting trust in your team.
By letting go, I am actually giving opportunities to the team members to sort out the problems we faced and deal with situations. This gives opportunities for them to learn, sharpen their problem solving skills, and also leverage on knowledge and experiences of more people – thus, getting to much better solutions in the long run.
Sometimes, I need to be the facilitator in the problem solving process, but most of the time, they actually know how to solve them. Not only this free up my time to focus on growth, but also the team members felt a part of the team, and have a stronger bond.
All these years, I see that those who I let them be involved in sorting out and deal with situations by themselves / among the team – they grow faster, they can level up much better and I can rely on them more, than those who don’t.