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Perpetuating a Problem-Solving Culture 71

How do you know you have a problem? You know you have
a problem when you observe symptoms—deviations from your
expected normality that bother you. Symptoms are subtle indica-
tions, behaviors, or results that tell you something is not quite
right or is not the way you want it to be. For example, symptoms of
an unhealthy plant include drooping leaves, leaves turning yellow,
and edges of leaves turning brown. The situation is “the plant is
not getting what it needs to be healthy.” The problem is, “I want
a healthy plant and this one is not.”
Similarly, when you have a low-grade fever and a runny nose
and are inordinately tired or unusually irritable, you are exhibit-
ing symptoms of a cold or perhaps something more complicated.
The situation is you are not feeling well. The problem is you want
to feel better, but you don’t. Being aware of symptoms and hav-
ing a keen ability to recognize them is important because they are

potentially red flags that signal either an impending problem or an
existing problem.
Recognizing you may have a problem in your department or
with an employee, or that you are on the verge of encountering
one, is a prerequisite to solving it. One word of caution: be careful
not to mistake a symptom for a problem. Symptoms are indica-
tions of a potential problem, not problems themselves.
Let’s look at the characteristics of a problem-solving culture,
and then we’ll apply the concepts in the examples following.

Characteristics of a

Problem-Solving Culture

In a problem-solving culture, managers and team members under-
stand that their main functions as a group is to solve problems and
produce results. It is the manager’s role to set a tone of collab-