What Are the Top 10 Ways to Solve Management Problems?

There are many ways to solve management problems. Solving problems is not specifically a management task, but managers are faced with a lot of daily problems that need to be solved. As a manager you have a slightly different set of resources than your employees. So how do you, as a manager, go about solving your issues? What are the ten ways to solve management problems.

10 Ways to Solve Management Problems

Although solving issues is not strictly a management responsibility, managers are confronted with a large number of them on a daily basis. You have a somewhat different number of capabilities as a manager than your employees.

Management’s objective is to reduce the recurrence of issues, which means we must confront them head-on before circumstances compel us to do so. Here are ten methods to use to solve management problems.

1. Prioritize Problems

Start by separating the problems into categories. Use the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) to prioritize problems and separate the trivial many from the vital few. Sure 100 things are going wrong, but if you can concentrate on the most important problems first, some of the rest will just go away in the process.

2. Focus on Problems You Control

Next, Sort the issues based on how much control you have in order to focus on problems you can control. Why worry about problems that are out of your control?

For example, break them into groups: full control, partial control or no control.

Focus first on those problems you have full control over and ignore those you have no control over. You have to fix your department problems first. Don’t try to solve management problems in other areas before you have made sure your area is totally under control.

3. Utilize Root Cause Analysis

Using a structure problem solving methodology like root cause analysis (RCA) ensures you are solving the right problem right. If you try to solve management the wrong problems, this will not help you.

4. Make Decisions with Facts

Opinions can lead you astray. Be sure to collect data and make decision by hard facts. Use the many modern IT tools that can be used to improve business intelligence, data collection, and analysis. Fact based decision making is a core principle of ISO 9001.

5. Break the Problem Down

It is a lot harder to solve big business problems. Divide and conquer. Break the problem down into separate manageable parts that can more easily be solved.

6. Use Your Team

You are smarter as a group than as any one individual, so empower your employees to involve your whole team to solve management problems.

7. Break out of Your Paradigm

Any problem can be solved using the right paradigm. If you are up against an impossible problem then change your paradigm to find the solution. Learn to recognize your own paradigms and break free from them.

8. Obtain Objective Input

Sometimes a fresh new look at the problem from someone outside of your area can provide the insight missing to solve your problem. This is one way to solve problems by thinking outside the box.

9. Consider All Possibilities

Solutions that may not have worked in the past may work today. Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking — if it was tried before it can’t work. Conditions may have changed enough so that It might just work this time. Consider all of your possibilities when trying to solve problems or improve the process.

10. Hire a Consultant

If all else fails, then maybe its time to hire a consultant. Consultants bring an objective viewpoint free of your internal politics. Consultants have a wider range of tools to use like value stream mapping. And consultants have experience solving problems encountered at other companies (and yes I am available…).

Ways to Solve Management Problems

If you are having trouble improving your processes, certifying to ISO standards, or implementing lean, then contact Bizmanualz. We will be happy to bring an objective viewpoint, improvement tools and experience gained from solving problems encountered at other companies. We have a lot of ways to solve management problems.