You’re not paid to find problems…

The year was 2005 and I was a 25 year old software development consultant.

I started a new project at a client and found myself as the tech lead of the project (it’s a long story). I had 3 other developer colleagues and a manager who brought requirements to the team and checked if we were on track.

My colleagues frequently had questions about the requirements or the technical solution and I had the responsibility to find answers for them.

Often I asked my manager “We have this technical issue, how are we going to solve it?” “How are we going to integrate this with that?” “How is this requirement supposed to work?” Etc, etc.

Then, one day, my manager told me the following:

You’re not paid to find problems. You’re paid to find solutions.

I remember the moment he said it and how I felt. It shook me to my core. I wasn’t doing my job properly and I hadn’t realise it.

13 years have passed. I have responsibility over a semi-large group of people. They come to me with problems ranging from “I can’t connect to the WiFi” to “I’m frustrated and I can’t work with this person”.

Unless you are actually paid to find problems (e.g. you are doing quality assurance), your job is not to find problems but to find solutions to those problems. Your organisation will reward people who help push it forward and that’s not done by telling everything that is wrong or that is a problem, but by solving it yourself or proposing ideas on how it can be improved.

Next time you think of going to your manager to share a problem you are facing, first try to solve it yourself. And if you can’t, bring the problem to him/her, explain what you tried to do to solve it, propose options on how you believe it could be solved. You add value to your manager, the organisation, and this will also help you develop your problem solving capabilities, make you more autonomous and less frustrated. Be proactive and take matters into your own hands, don’t expect someone else to solve your problems!

And if you are the manager people come to with all of their problems, don’t just solve it for them. Help people solve their own problems. It may sometimes cost more time, but you will be teaching a skill that is invaluable. “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”.