Creating a culture of empowerment starts with changing how your team brings their challenges to the table.
There was a point where every meeting felt like déjà vu.
Different day, same problems. And somehow, I was always the one expected to fix them. 😩
Even with decent systems in place, my team would show up looking at me like, “Right, what do we do now?”
It wasn’t anyone’s fault—it’s just the pattern we’d fallen into. But over time, it wears you down. You stop feeling like a leader and start feeling like tech support with a calendar full of meetings. 😓
Eventually, I’d had enough. I knew something had to change—not just for me, but for the team too. They didn’t want to be spoon-fed either.
💡So I made a few shifts.
Nothing fancy—just a simple framework we started using to prep for meetings differently. And honestly, it’s made a massive difference.
Instead of people turning up with problems, they show up with potential solutions. We actually get things done, and I don’t leave meetings feeling like I’ve got five new jobs by the end of each one.
🎙 That’s what this Systemize Your Success podcast episode is about. I walk through exactly how we made that shift, and I’ve put together a little template you can steal if you want to try it with your own team.
Check out as we explore how to cultivate a team of independent thinkers who can drive your business forward!
KEY TAKEAWAYS: How to Create a Culture of Empowerment in Your Business
- Empower Staff to Think Independently: Encourage team members to come up with their own solutions rather than just presenting problems. This fosters a culture of critical thinking and accountability.
- Implement the ‘Ideas Over Issues’ Framework: Use a structured approach where team members present issues along with potential solutions and any relevant checks they have performed. This streamlines meetings and enhances productivity.
- Encourage Ownership of Actions: When discussing proposed solutions, managers should guide team members to take responsibility for their actions without taking over the decision-making process. This helps build confidence and independence.
- Provide Constructive Feedback: If a proposed solution raises concerns, managers should ask for deeper analysis rather than simply rejecting the idea. This encourages further thought and refinement of solutions.
- Utilise Real-Life Examples: Sharing specific instances of how the framework has been successfully applied can illustrate its effectiveness and motivate team members to adopt the approach in their own problem-solving efforts.
BEST MOMENTS: What a Culture of Empowerment Sounds Like in Action
04:24 – 💬 “We can empower and train our staff to become those great thinkers, those great solvers of problems, the people that are the most valuable in the business.”
06:03 – 💬 “The idea of the 'Ideas Over Issues' framework is to give people a mechanism to force them to actually think of the next step before they bring an issue.”
10:31 – 💬 “Even if it wasn't a great solution in the end, we still encourage them by actually complimenting them on taking action and coming up with a solution themselves and actually pushing it forward without having that total certainty it was going to work.”
TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW
00:00 Empower Teams to Solve Problems
05:58 “Ideas Over Issues for Solutions”
07:15 “Efficient Problem-Solving Framework”
13:20 Framework Download for Business Improvement
Episode Transcript
Dr Steve Day:
You ever feel frustrated that your team bring you their problems instead of solutions, that you are the one having to come up with all the answers, that you feel that maybe your meetings are just dragging on because people are just not using their common sense to fix stuff and they\\\\\\\'re just expecting you to do all the thinking. If that\\\\\\\'s you, then listen in because today I wanna share a framework that we\\\\\\\'ve developed over the past nine or ten years that\\\\\\\'s totally transformed the way our staff think about the issues that come up and as a result how that\\\\\\\'s improved the efficiency of our meetings and the productivity as our business as a whole.
And if you stick around to the end, I\\\\\\\'m gonna share with you a link so you can download a free copy of this framework to share with your team that includes a simple structure for using the framework and also a video link to actually train your staff and yourself on how to sort of start integrating this into your daily practice. And remember to hit subscribe right now so you don\\\\\\\'t miss out on future episodes where we share tips, tricks, and guides on getting the best out of all the apps, technology, and automation tools available, interviews with top entrepreneurs and coaches, and much more precise to make your business run more efficiently and give you more time to do the stuff that you enjoy each day.
One of the things that has frustrated me more than anything over the many years I\\\\\\\'ve been in business is when people don\\\\\\\'t think. When they bring me their problems without actually thinking of any next steps, they expect me as the business owner to just solve everything, to know everything, and actually not to do the thing I think I\\\\\\\'m paying them for, which has actually helped me move the business forward in a productive and efficient way. The challenge is that us business owners can\\\\\\\'t be there all the time, and we can\\\\\\\'t possibly anticipate every single problem that could possibly come up. We can create things like FAQs and knowledge bases and SOPs and all the rest of it.
And that\\\\\\\'s great for the stuff that happens again and again. We can avoid reinventing the wheel, avoid answering the same question twice. But every time a new question comes up, somebody has to think of the solution. And if the culture in the business is simply to bring that problem to the table and expect somebody else to answer it, it\\\\\\\'s super inefficient, and it\\\\\\\'s totally unscalable. I know it\\\\\\\'s not just me that suffers from this.
I\\\\\\\'ve coached over 250 business owners, and this is the one of the things that frustrates us business owners the most, is the fact we just want our staff to think, to come up with an idea. Even if it\\\\\\\'s a bad idea, the fact they\\\\\\\'ve actually taken an attempt at coming up with a solution is way, way better than just bringing a simple problem to the table expecting somebody else to fix it for them. But I also realized that actually it\\\\\\\'s down to us business owners and managers to actually empower people to think and actually start taking action or start at least coming up with suggested solutions.
And if we leave it up to other people, they often won\\\\\\\'t. One of the worst things we can do as business owners and managers is to actually give people the solution without actually making them think. But that tells them that the easiest and quickest way to get past the problem is to just ask a question, ask somebody else to do the thinking for them. And I saw this so much when I used to work in hospital.
Us junior doctors would basically get a problem, we\\\\\\\'d just take it, you know, with our piece of paper or the notes, and we\\\\\\\'d just go and take it to the consultant and say, hey, can you tell me basically what to do next? The good consultants would say, no. You tell me what you\\\\\\\'re going to do next. And then, obviously, they would stop us if we\\\\\\\'re gonna do something dangerous. But what they wanted to do is to train us to be self thinking independent doctors.
We weren\\\\\\\'t gonna be junior doctors forever. We wouldn\\\\\\\'t always have someone to go and ask. When we got promoted to being consultant, we would be the person expected to help other people and come up with all the answers to all the questions that no one else could. But to get from being a junior doctor to a consultant, we just have to become better believers in our own ability to actually create solutions and be more confident to take action on the ideas that we\\\\\\\'ve actually formulated. And the same thing happens in business. We can be brilliant managers. We can be those great consultants that are training those junior doctors up. We can play that role and we can empower and train our staff to become those great thinkers.
Those great solvers of problems, the people that are the most valuable in the business, that can work independently, that can have a go at stuff, that can make mistakes and know it\\\\\\\'s okay. They just need to figure out how to take the next step after they\\\\\\\'ve made that mistake and move forward. And that\\\\\\\'s just how life works. Things don\\\\\\\'t always go right, but we won\\\\\\\'t know if it\\\\\\\'s right often unless we take the next step.
So how do we go from that place if you\\\\\\\'ve got staff who are just bringing constant stream of issues and problems and questions to the table rather than actually thinking things through? How do we start changing their mindset that actually the most important skill that they can learn is how to think through the next steps in the situation and come up with an at least an idea if not even take that action. The way that we do it is actually an idea that I got from one of my coaches many years ago. They had a different name for their framework. We\\\\\\\'ve tweaked it and developed it over the years.
And the framework that we use and have developed in our business is called the “Ideas Over Issues” framework. The word issues comes from our meetings because every meeting we have has an agenda. On that agenda is a list of issues and people can add issues to that agenda between meetings. Then on that meeting, we\\\\\\\'ll go through those issues and answer them one by one.
Previously, what happened was I would be the one as the business owner that would simply be giving the answer to each thing and people then go away and do whatever I said. The problem is, as I said before, that\\\\\\\'s totally unscalable. Us Business Owners can\\\\\\\'t be the person that answers everything. We\\\\\\\'ve got to develop these thinkers, these people that can actually act on their own initiative.
Otherwise, we are stuck in our businesses forever. So the idea of the “Ideas Over Issues” framework is to give people a mechanism to force them to actually think of the next step before they bring an issue. So we don\\\\\\\'t allow people to simply ask questions about a problem in a meeting anymore.
We enforce them to actually present that issue with possible solutions and also the things they\\\\\\\'ve thought about or the checks they may have done in order to empower them to use critical thinking and active participation in problem solving and to take ownership and accountability for the future actions because they\\\\\\\'re the one that hopefully gonna come up with a solution we\\\\\\\'re gonna use to be more productive and to make sure our meetings are run more efficiently because we\\\\\\\'re spending less time on actually thinking through problems during the meeting and more time just maybe on just refining the solution or maybe just adding in a bit of insight that maybe you have that they didn\\\\\\\'t have.
It sort of may add another thought to the actual possible solution. But we\\\\\\\'re not spending time on digging in and the actual problem and trying to understand it, because the person who\\\\\\\'s bringing the problem to the meeting, they\\\\\\\'re gonna have a far broader understanding of the situation, of the context of that problem. If they\\\\\\\'re bringing you and as a manager an issue, you might not know everything that they\\\\\\\'ve been through to come to the problem where they\\\\\\\'ve got. You will know everything that\\\\\\\'s happened.
Just like going back to my analogy of when I used to work as a junior doctor, I may have spent twenty minutes interviewing a patient and asking them details and reviewing the the reports and the the tests, etcetera. And then I bring that problem to the consultant, I present it with like a one or two line question and expect him to be able to give me the answer. He hasn\\\\\\\'t got all of that background that I\\\\\\\'ve just spent all those hours actually thinking about or minutes or whatever thinking about.
He just sort of gotta use the information I provided to him and provide off the cuff solution or what a good consultant may do is start asking questions. All the things I should have asked the patient to actually draw all that information out of me. However, in the hospital, when we presented those problems using a framework that we stated the specific information the consultant needed to be able to give them that picture in a very succinct format that gave them all the key information they needed in order for them to make an informed decision, that is when we actually got a great solution to a problem in a minimum amount of time.
And it\\\\\\\'s that exact idea that I wanted to bring into my business, and that is where the “Ideas Over Issues” framework came from. So the “Ideas Over Issues” is a four-step framework to ensure that the important information is conveyed as quickly and concisely as as possible in order for the person on the receiving end, if you like, to be able to actually give any advice if needed or just say, yeah.
Get on with it. So firstly, the person will state what the issue is. They\\\\\\\'ll then state what they intend to do. They\\\\\\\'ll also mention anything they\\\\\\\'ve tried, checked, or considered before coming up with the suggested actions. And lastly, they\\\\\\\'ll invite any further input because people in the room, in the meeting, or the person they\\\\\\\'re speaking to may have some broader context which that person is not aware of.
And so it\\\\\\\'s just sort of sense checking their ideas and the plans before moving forward. But for this to work, us managers and business owners have to play our role. If someone doesn\\\\\\\'t use the framework and simply ask a question, we need to push it back to them and say, you know, what\\\\\\\'s your plan? Represent this using the “Ideas Over Issues” framework, and then we can discuss it.
Or if they present something and the actions that they presented are really something you\\\\\\\'re really against them doing, that you have big worries about that, that you do if you think they\\\\\\\'ve completely missed the point, ask them to go deeper onto it. So maybe share some insights, then ask them to come back with another solution based on now that they\\\\\\\'re expanded knowledge onto that particular topic.
And the last, but probably the most important part, is to actually encourage people to take ownership of the actions they do. The way we can do this is by not actually taking that ownership away from them. So if we say to somebody, yeah, that\\\\\\\'s brilliant. I think it\\\\\\\'s a great idea. I think it\\\\\\\'s definitely gonna work. That\\\\\\\'s exactly what I would do.
Now you are taking all the accountability for it because if it goes wrong, it\\\\\\\'s like, well, you know, that\\\\\\\'s the way you said you would do it. So, of course, you know, it\\\\\\\'s not my fault. However, if you simply say that sounds reasonable, let\\\\\\\'s see how it goes. Come back to me with the results, and we\\\\\\\'ll take you from there. That leaves accountability much more on their side. That if it goes wrong, they\\\\\\\'re actually gonna be responsible for it even though they came and talked to you about it. You\\\\\\\'ve not said, yeah. That\\\\\\\'s brilliant.
It\\\\\\\'s a % right. There\\\\\\\'s no possible way to go wrong. What you have done is say, yeah. It sounds reasonable. You go away and have a go at that and come back to me the results, and then we\\\\\\\'ll take it from there. And then you deal with the results whichever way they are. Either way, we need to encourage people to do it more.
So even if it wasn\\\\\\\'t a great solution in the end, we still encourage them by actually complimenting them on taking action and coming up with a solution themselves and actually pushing it forward without having that total certainty it was gonna work.
That is a skill that we wanna actually encourage. Hopefully, people will make most of the time decisions based on good sound facts and actually things will work out. But when they don\\\\\\\'t now and again, we definitely don\\\\\\\'t wanna come down like a ton of bricks and actually undermine that empowerment that we\\\\\\\'re trying to get into people to actually start working more independently.
So this will actually give you a real life example that came up in a meeting recently. I\\\\\\\'ll just read it off my screen here. So this is the way the person presented it, which is a great way, I think, of actually presenting an issue. So the issue is that the automation for sending reminders about our terms of business is sending reminders despite the terms of business being signed by the client. I intend to reach out to the support of our CRM to get them to suggest a solution because I seriously can\\\\\\\'t figure anything out.
I\\\\\\\'ve checked that the client had signed the agreement, that the automation appears to be working properly, and looks like it\\\\\\\'s set up correctly, and I tested it and got the same result as the client. We also updated the path to conditions last time this happened, but it still hasn\\\\\\\'t worked. Does anyone have any further input before I raise this ticket so I can add it to the request? That was a brilliant way. I\\\\\\\'ll be able to bring me into that conversation to show me this person has a brilliant idea of what\\\\\\\'s going on. They\\\\\\\'ve already tried some stuff out, they\\\\\\\'ve had a look at it, they\\\\\\\'ve spoken to the client, they\\\\\\\'ve tested themselves.
All I had to do was say, yeah, crack on. That\\\\\\\'s it. Like, there\\\\\\\'s nothing else for me to get involved with. Rather than saying, hey, the terms of business isn\\\\\\\'t working. Don\\\\\\\'t know what to do. Then we\\\\\\\'ve had to open up the automation. We\\\\\\\'ve had to go into it. And that problem would have ended up taking ten, maybe fifteen minutes, just from experience, of me trying to get my head into it, understand, do they actually know what\\\\\\\'s going on here, have they tested things correctly.
Whereas if they come and present this confidently, I can just say, yeah. They seem to have, like, ticked all the boxes. This is exactly what I would have done. Great. Just crack on. Let\\\\\\\'s let\\\\\\\'s raise that ticket and just get on with it. So this is a process that we need to go through. We need to encourage.
We need to train, we need to mentor, we need to nurture our staff to have this ability. And the way we react and the way we interact with people in meetings when they do bring their issues, either pushing them back and saying come back with the “Ideas Over Issues” framework or maybe getting them to dig deeper into a problem where you don\\\\\\\'t think they\\\\\\\'ve really thought it through or you don\\\\\\\'t believe they have an understanding of the problem.
And then forcing them to do this on a regular basis means they start bringing better and better “Ideas Over Issues” framework to you instead of just presenting problems and just like when I used to work in the hospital, you could see how impressed the consultant was when you do it this way. Then you presented all the facts needed for them to help you in that final decision making, just just a sense check before I take that action. And it works just the same in business.
So I strongly encourage you to have a go at using this framework in your business. And if you wanna get a downloadable version of this, so you can actually just print it off, you can share it with your staff as a PDF, sort of video on there just explaining how this framework works so you don\\\\\\\'t actually train anybody.
You could just share this with your team, start using it in your meetings from today then head over to sys.academy/guides. That\\\\\\\'s sys.academy/guides and on there is a link so you can download a free copy of this and actually start using it in your business. Thanks so much. I hope you\\\\\\\'ve enjoyed this episode.
If you have, remember to hit subscribe and please do share this with your friends and colleagues and anyone else you think might find this useful, I e, any small business owner or other business owner that has ever had any issues with their staff not being as the proactive and amazing problem solvers they wish they had. This is a tool that we believe will help fix that from today.
Good luck.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
- Our Guides, Frameworks, and Templates: https://sys.academy/guides
LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST
- Podcast: https://www.systemizeyoursuccess.com
- Website: https://systemsandoutsourcing.com/
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ABOUT THE HOST
Steve used to be a slave to his business, but moving to Sweden in 2015 forced him to change how he worked. He switched to running his businesses remotely. After totally nailing this concept, he spent his time helping other small business owners do the same. Steve has been investing in property since 2002, has a degree in computing, and worked as a doctor in the NHS before quitting to focus full-time on sharing his systems and outsourcing methodology with the world. He now lives in Sweden and runs his UK-based businesses remotely with the help of his team of Filipino and UK-based Virtual Assistants.
Most business owners feel overwhelmed because they don’t know how to create systems or get the right help.
Our systems and outsourcing Courses and coaching programme will help you automate your business and work effectively with affordable virtual assistants. That way, you will stop feeling overwhelmed and start making more money.
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