Here are the reasons why you should embrace problems and not fear them, and use it as an opportunity to become better at what you are doing.

I worked in the labour industry for quite a long time and if there is one learning school for problem solving skills, then that is it. The very first year after I became a manager an outsourcing company, we had to supply 600 blue collar artisans on a Turnkey project. We worked day and night to recruit skilled artisans, put them through at least 7 days of processes (testing, medicals, inductions, booking into hostels, signing of contracts, etc.) before they went onto site to start working. It was a nightmare just to get them ready to enter the site.

Finally, we recruited all the required labour. We were convinced that the worst part was over. Only to realize the trouble just started. Around day two some of the managers on site started complaining that their employee was not delivered, others reported that the wrong employee was delivered and, in some cases, the required mobilisation documentation was incorrect. It was not long before we had a strike on site. And yes, those strikes DO look like the ones you see on television, they get really volatile and dangerous. And because it was a Turnkey project, our company was in danger to be chased from site. It was overwhelming and we were shocked, as we believed that we did a good job to recruit all the people! Obviously, the recruitment was only a small part of the whole process.

To make a long story short, I realized very soon that we had a few challenges (some would call these problems):

• Our processes were not accommodating all the areas that we had to focus on
• Our systems were not set up properly to monitor each step of the process
• Our employee members were not trained well enough to enable them to deal with the challenges they encountered during all the different stages of the process
• We had no way of knowing what can go wrong and how to address it, as there has never been any documented “Best Operating Processes – BOP’s” in place that we could refer to, so we were operating in the dark figuratively speaking
• We didn’t have enough manpower to absorb the work load and some of the employees we had allocated to the task was not experienced enough
• We had no back-up plan or additional employees to put in place to ease the workload
• Our management team was too small to monitor all the employees working on the project as there were too many different areas to manage

That year we barely survived that project, we struggled until the end of the six weeks of the project and were very lucky to still have a contract in place with our client so that we could return the next year. I swore never to put myself through that again and came up with my own little process, which I call “The Post mortem”.

The Post Mortem is used to draft an Action Plan and is based on four questions I ask “after” the event/incident or problem arrived:

• What went wrong?
• Why did it happen?
• What can we put in place now (processes, checks and balances or people) to prevent it to happen in future? And document that in a BOP/process.
• What resources to I need to put in place to succeed next time?

In some cases, you can’t wait to start with your Port Mortem plan until after the incident, you might need to start with it the moment that you are busy with the project, so that you can fix what is wrong as you go along. With every new project we did, I documented all the types of queries that my payroll department might encounter during the project and then designed Best Operating Procedures to address them.

Why a Best Operating Process is the BEST way to prevent the same problem/challenge in the future:

• Your employees have something to reference to when they encounter a problem with a solution already designed to address it.
• Use your BOPs to train new employees (as part of your induction process when they join the company).
• Present your BOPs to your client/customer when a problem arises to ensure them that you have it under control or confirm that you have changed your process to fit their specific need
• You should update your BOP’s at least once a year. This offers you to opportunity to re-train your staff and also get their input on the processes in place, encouraging participation and buy-in from them.

Every business is different, your challenges are different and your solutions are different, but if you have a system in place, those challenges will be just another part of your daily “business as usual” process.

Do you need assistance to put systems in place in your business? Get in touch with us, we can help!

Antoinette Venter, ActionCOACH Business Coach
antoinetteventer.actioncoach.com | antoinetteventer@actioncoach.com