How to stop fixing your team’s mistakes

I think it’s safe to say that this is everyone’s bugbear. 

“How can I stop finding and fixing my teams mistakes?”

Let’s set the scene

>> You want your time back  

>> So you’ve hired someone and handed over a bunch of work…

>> And now…you are spending all your time finding and fixing the person’s mistakes

>> So you start to wonder if there was any point handing it over – maybe it’s easier to do it yourself.

I get it! This is how every single person feels at some stage.

I have and I bet you have.

So here’s what you need to do to finally STOP being the one to fix all the mistakes.

1. Change the way you are responding

Whatever your are currently doing right now isn’t working right – or else you wouldn’t be cranky

2. Stop being part of the solution process  – you’ve probably accidentally created a flow that includes you so you need to step out of it and stop being in the solution (or the solution!)

3. Create a culture / process for the way you want it to be – that should probably look like

• Find it 
• Own it
• Solve it “FOS”

Name it and it becomes real! Why have a FOS system when it comes to mistakes?  We find emails, own them and solve them. Boom!

Suddenly you are able to see the problem, talk about it and you’ve described your solution.

Let’s take a real life example.

Emails are going out with mistakes.

You’ve noticed this, so you’ve asked for emails to be sent to you for approval first. 

Here you have become part of the solution. 

A slightly better CEO solution could be to coming up with a new step in the process that says ‘check emails first’ 

So instead, you’ve become part of finding the solution. 

In both cases you cross your fingers that they do what’s asked or they know how to fix it next time…

What happens when they need to send an email without you or another problem comes up – they need your to help fix it!

So here’s an alternative –

You see the mistake

You point it out. 

You ask who wants to own this challenge?

You ask the team or the person to come up with a way to avoid it in the future

You ask them how they are going to check that the solution is working

You monitor how it’s working

You repeat this if necessary

Boom.

The business is running without you.

Wahoo! 

You’re now on your way to transforming your team into self sufficient rockstars AND you’ve got your time back!