By Dave Garrison
Dealing with last-minute changes and solving problems is an everyday challenge in the hospitality and catering industries. Whether it’s supply issues, people calling in sick or last-minute customer requests, it can seem difficult to get ahead of these problems and identify better solutions. How can you overcome these hurdles?
The short answer is this: tap into each team member’s experience and involve them in creating the best solutions. Even if they don’t have your knowledge of the business, they definitely have hands-on experience in your business. And when you invite staff members to help drive the outcome, you create a culture where people want to do better. When they know their opinions matter, they will proactively initiate ideas.
How to Increase Buy-In and Get Better Solutions
The Drama-Free Problem-Solving System is a proven method that doesn’t require a heavy lift and allows everyone to participate when they have a chance. This system changes the role of the leader from the person who gives all the answers to the person who facilitates a process to generate the best option from the team.
Following are five steps to follow to implement the system. The first two steps begin with the leader getting clear on what’s being addressed and what’s important in the solutions:
- Define the challenge: The leader defines the specific problem or challenge to be solved and shares any relevant data to be considered ahead of time. This data could be numbers, stories, pictures or articles.
- Identify your criteria: Think of criteria as the checklist in your head that a great solution would include. If you know the solution must be implemented in the next two weeks, say so. Ditto if the solution should be repeatable or easy to teach. Let people know ahead of time what you are looking for in a good solution—not what the good solution is, but what a good solution addresses.
Now it’s time to share that challenge and criteria with the team in advance so they can consider their experience and insights before you meet. When it’s time for the meeting, try these three steps:
- Brainstorm solutions: Have people share their ideas one at a time and capture them on a whiteboard or flip chart where everyone can see. If it’s a virtual meeting, use Google slides and create sticky notes. No discussion is necessary. Combine like ideas.
- Vote on a solution: Give each person five votes to place against the ideas. All votes can be placed on one idea or spread across a number of them. No discussion is necessary. People will use their best judgment to allocate their votes.
- Implement: Ask one or two team members to take the kernel of the solution offered and to build it out, including ideas on how it can best be implemented.
When you have set up the problem and criteria correctly, you should be okay with any answer that is selected. However, if you get an uncomfortable feeling with any solution offered, ask yourself, “What criteria does this violate?” and “What did I fail to share?” If this happens, after all ideas are listed, introduce the additional criteria and ask, “How would these answers change if we introduced the additional criteria of x?”
Create an Idea Pantry for Future Discussion
Another benefit of this system is that team members will likely identify other issues to be addressed or have ideas that don’t float to the top but still deserve consideration. This is where you can create an “Idea Pantry.” Write down those ideas for later discussion.
When one hospitality company executive we work with tried this process, she noticed immediate results. In her words, her team is now “taking ownership faster and growing faster. When they saw me taking notes and heard me repeat what they said, they had a more positive tone when I asked for ideas and feedback.”
Using the Drama-Free Problem-Solving System creates three benefits beyond better ideas:
- It increases employee buy-in, which will reduce turnover because people appreciate knowing they are valued.
- It boosts the confidence and camaraderie of team members as they create something together.
- It models for your future managers a powerful tool for engaging their teams when they become leaders.
Increasing buy-in is shown to reduce turnover, which gives you more time to focus on important aspects of your business instead of wasting time interviewing and training.
Take the first step in the Drama-Free Problem-Solving System by identifying one specific problem or challenge and sharing it with your team. The results may surprise you!
About the Author
Dave Garrison is a nationally recognized business strategist and co-founder of Garrison Growth, where he helps CEOs and senior leaders rebuild buy-in, align teams and drive results. A former public-company and venture-backed executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience—including board roles at Ameritrade—Dave brings real-world insight to today’s engagement and execution challenges. He is the author of the USA Today bestseller The Buy-In Advantage: Why Employees Stop Caring―and How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Give Their All (Matt Holt Books), and a sought-after advisor and speaker for executives, corporations and YPO chapters worldwide. Dave holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
