Every answer you give costs your team something.
In the early years of DLP, I was the person with the answers—not just sometimes, every time; I thought that made me a strong leader. What I didn’t realize was that each time I stepped in with a solution, I was indirectly teaching the team that the problem wasn’t really theirs to solve, even in instances when it absolutely was.
Over the years and thanks to many great mentors, I’ve learned that the real work of leadership isn’t building a team of executors with an allegiance to a company that runs on your decisions alone: it’s about equipping and empowering the right people to make the right decisions without you. People who step up, step in, and say “I got this.” The people that Liz Wiseman calls impact players.
"A leader is great, not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others".
- John C. Maxwell
The challenge isn’t just operational: it’s cultural. Organizations where leaders solve all the problems foster a learned helplessness company-wide. Teams become habitually passive, waiting for direction rather than generating it. And when leaders do finally try to step back, they discover that the team never learned to step up. Not because they weren’t capable: because they were never empowered to.
The solution? Build, nurture, and model from the very top a culture that equips and empowers the right people to consistently make the right decisions without you. It’s not an overnight fix, but it's non-negotiable for your future success.
Sharpen the questions rather than give the answer.
Actions speak louder than words. To set culture, you have to be the culture. The first shift you have to make is to resist the instinct to solve every problem that comes to you. Even when the answer is obvious or stepping in with a solution doesn’t take much of your time.
When someone comes to you with an issue, sharpen their questions—don’t answer them. This step equips them to find the answer by intentionally directing their focus, while also empowering them with a subtle message, “I believe you are capable of solving this and I trust you to.”
Foster a culture that normalizes discussing issues openly, regularly, and intentionally.
Every organization has issues. Every team, every leader—everyone. Extraordinary organizations, teams, and leaders are those that surface issues consistently and intentionally. What do I mean by intentionally? I mean bringing up issues to find a solution, not just vent frustration.
This is directly built into our L10 (Level 10) Meetings as part of the Elite Execution System (EES). These meetings, which you can read more about in chapter nine of Building an Elite Organization (and soon in Building an Extraordinary Organization), are one of the most critical tools of EES. They follow a set format where the final stage, the IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve) session is the most important. While other stages of the meeting should take up about 5 minutes, a full 45 minutes or more is best for the IDS portion.
We also dedicate one day each year to a full day of company-wide IDS sessions. Ahead of the day, our People Team works tirelessly behind the scenes gathering input from across the organization on the top issues that team members feel need to be surfaced, whether they concern individual teams, organization-wide processes, or breakdowns in communication from senior leadership—myself included.
I kick-off IDS with a training session before team members break out into individual groups, utilizing the Executive IDS Summary to work through solving the issue they’ve been assigned. All of these summaries are shared with Senior Leadership for review—this year we had nearly 50—and conversations begin about what changes need to take place.
Let’s walk through the IDS framework at a high level.
IDENTIFY: Define the problem and identify the facts before you assign the solution.
Most of the time when a solution fails, it’s because the right questions weren’t asked to properly—and objectively—define the problem. Here’s a simple example. You identify what on face value looks like a staffing problem. The solution? Hiring. Six months later, the problem you were solving for still exists. Why? Because you weren’t intentional about identifying the problem and what you actually needed to solve for was a broken process.
That’s why “Identify” is the first step in IDS. It sounds simple, but this step matters more than most leaders recognize. The most complicated, solution-demanding issues—especially across teams with multiple stakeholders— are shrouded in opinions. This first step is about getting clear on the facts and aligning on the true problem before anyone proposes a single solution. This is what changes the entire conversation.
It forces clarity, surfaces hidden assumptions, and creates a sense of agreement over what the true problem is, setting the foundation for genuine buy-in on a solution. A team that helps define the problem doesn’t have to be sold on supporting the solution—they already understand why it matters.
DISCUSS: Leverage group discussion to dig deeper, with the right people and at the right stage.
A solution doesn’t immediately earn support. By the time you’re presenting it, if the right people weren’t involved at the right times, the boat has sailed on building genuine alignment. You’re asking people to approve something they had no hand in shaping, and the best you can ask for is compliance, not ownership.
For L10 meetings, attendees enter their issues ahead of the meeting and as the leader goes through this portion, before they dive into an issue they make sure the right people are in the room to contribute to the conversation. If they aren’t, the issue can either be moved to a future L10 where the right person will be present or a dedicated IDS Session can be scheduled outside of the L10.
There’s something interesting that happens in the discussion stage: often, the issue that was raised turns out to be only a symptom of a larger issue that needs solving. The IDS process is an excellent way to get to the bottom of what is really driving the issue. Because so many people are collaborating on the issue and bringing their unique perspectives and experiences to the table, the likelihood of identifying the root issue increases. That’s not to say the issue raised isn’t always the true issue, but you’d be surprised how often it’s only a symptom.
SOLVE: But not always.
I can’t sit here and tell you that every IDS session ends in an earth-shattering solution. Sometimes it surfaces things that need more time to effectively solve, sometimes the first solution isn’t the right one.
Whether you arrive at a solution or not, there’s a clear result: you’ve strengthened your team's belief that they are empowered to solve problems, that you’ll do what you can to equip them to solve problems, and that their voice is valued within the organization.
