Practices for Professionals – Bring Options, Not Problems

All organizations have issues. And whether you are a member of the C-Suite or the shop floor, you will inevitably come in contact with these problems during the performance of your daily work. Some challenges will be within your prevue to correct. Others will require authorization from a higher authority. In these cases, the problem must be presented to the senior individual. The method of presentation, however, can have a significant, though possibly unseen, impact on how you are perceived by the manager to whom you are making the report.

Any individual can report a problem. Doing so drives the senior manager to invest his or her limited and valuable time in developing options to resolve the issue. Such issue presentations offer the limited value of bringing to light an opportunity for improvement. However, individuals bringing forth both the issue and options for its resolution not only provide their manager with a performance improvement opportunity, they also reduce that person’s time burden to identify the possible resolving actions. Furthermore, by presenting options, the StrategyDriven Professional show his/her competence in resolving issues and, if a collaborative effort was needed to identify one or more solutions, demonstrates leadership ability in the form of pulling together a team and facilitating its collaboration. Such professionals can further distinguish him/herself by recommending a course of action that is supported by its reasoned merits over those of the other options.

Final Thoughts…

StrategyDriven Contributors often find that it is optimal to present one’s leader with three options, one of which is recommended. Presenting more than three options tends to overload and confuse while presenting fewer than three portrays either a lack of thought or an overly predetermined course of action.

When presenting an option, particularly the recommended option, a business case-like report is not necessary. The recommendation details should be delivered verbally with enough high-level detail as to satisfy reasonable inquiry without requiring the issue identifier excessive time to devise a fully developed solution. Significant issues requiring a business case should be presented with the business case as an option as these reports warrant management’s approval for the expenditure of resources required to create them.

About the Author

Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.