Managers of companies or the employees who have some subordinates have surely once faced a situation when they needed to manage a work ‘avalanche’ – it may be unsolved issues, office letters, applications, requests, reports, etc.
Today I would like to get you acquainted with a wonderful tool that can be used in any company and in life of any person. Earlier I borrowed it from Ron Hubbard, I’ve used it already for several years and I enjoy the results.
The main idea is the fact that after having introduced this simple tool, employees of any level do not create for you (for the manager) any issues, they look for the ways to resolve their tasks themselves, primarily by their own efforts. Because, generally, almost all issues are resolved by ‘the boss’. Of course, you can say that this is why we have a boss so that he knew to resolve any tasks and issues of the company. However, the sticking point is that after some time employees start to think that it is destiny and duty of the manager to solve ALL issues. This understanding leads employees to the state of their own uncertainty in solving the tasks and issues set for them.
In addition to that, this kind of an uncertainty virus can spread even over assistant officers, who are mainly hired to help managers to deal with work avalanches. In no time a manager becomes ‘indispensable’, and any issue can be resolved by him/her only. As a result, all operating processes slow down, including profit gain.
In the ‘situation’ field employees describe an issue or a task and provide complete information about it so that the manager could understand the subject matter. In the ‘data’ field, an employee includes the information required for solving the issue. And, of course, in the ‘solution’ field he/she specifies HIS/HER solution that HE/SHE thinks to be appropriate in this situation.
For example, your employee, hired as a driver, needs to buy a car. He/she describes the situation and provides a solid reason why the manager shall spend money for it. Generally, having learned a clearly described situation the manager understands that if the car is not replaced now, then, at best, they will be penalized by traffic authorities, and, at worst, something irremediable can happen to the car. Then the driver shall specify in the ‘data’ field several contacts of suppliers with indication of goods prices and their terms of supply. Eventually, the employee offers an optimal ‘solution’, form his/her point of view, and he/she can also specify a method of payment to the selected supplier.
The manager shall only read this CSW and sign in the ‘Approved’ or ‘Not Approved’ field. Mr. Hubbard even wrote about this as follows: ‘If you are mad with your boss you can always ruin him with ‘Incomplete Staff Work’. You forward him a fragment of alarming data without collecting the whole picture. This makes him do a full job of information collection’.
Some time later you can notice that you receive less and less of various messages from employees. It is due to the fact that when employees start to study ‘issues’ some of them become irrelevant and some get resolved during information collection.
The solution here can be very simple. You implement a document named CSW (Completed Staff Work), which is prepared as an ordinary message and contains three main fields titled ‘situation’, ‘data’ and ‘solution’.
Thus, by requesting from employees to collect complete data and suggest their own solution we make them more capable and responsible.
Marat Nugmanov
Chief Editor and Founder of the Drilling Solutions company