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Successful Supervisors Deal with Problems

Have you ever been tempted to ignore a problem?

I have. More than once to be honest. And it never helped the problem to ignore it. That unmotivated team member doesn't magically turn it around. That broken process just stays broken. And that unhappy customer gets noisier.

Sometimes we hesitate about dealing with a problem because we aren't even sure it is a problem. Maybe it's just the way things are and we need to learn to live with it. Maybe it's a fact of life.

If we have no control or influence over the situation, it may be a fact of life.

Calling something a problem doesn't make it a problem, but ignoring it might.

What do successful supervisors do? What do centered, high performance leaders do?

- Determine how much of the situation you control or influence
- Analyze the root causes of your situation (what's really going on?)
- Ask for help from the people involved in the situation. What's their view?
- Deal with situations when they first emerge

How do you handle a situation to determine whether or not it's a problem?

-- Douglas Brent Smith


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