How Great Leaders Solve Problems

Description

When something goes wrong at work, employees look to the manager for direction. This course explains what that role involves and how to do it well. It starts with the difference between reacting to problems and preventing them, then lays out a five-step process: define the problem, brainstorm, evaluate the options, implement the best one and analyze the results. The later lessons are about working as a group. You’ll learn how to describe a problem so your team feels able to solve it and how to run a brainstorming session that produces new ideas. The last lesson before the review covers barriers such as groupthink and functional fixedness.

Each lesson opens with a workplace scenario and asks what you would do. The course ends with a five-part scenario in which you lead a response to a food safety failure at a restaurant chain.

What you’ll be able to do

• Decide when a problem needs the team and when you can solve it yourself
• Identify risks in your people, operations and products before they become problems, and recognize warning signs early
• Work through a five-step process from defining the problem to analyzing the results
• Describe a problem to your team in plain, future-focused language that builds confidence rather than panic
• Run a brainstorming session that invites different perspectives and defers judgment
• Recognize mental set, functional fixedness and groupthink, and use specific tactics to get past each
• Respond to employees’ ideas in a way that keeps them sharing

Who it’s for

Managers and executives who are responsible for how their team handles setbacks. It is also useful for anyone preparing to lead a project team.

What’s inside

9 lessons, self-paced:

1. Introduction to Workplace Problems
2. A Leader’s Role in Solving Problems
3. Problem Prevention and Detection
4. The Problem-Solving Process
5. Framing and Communicating Problems
6. Facilitating Creative Problem-Solving on Your Team
7. Overcoming Barriers to Creative Problem-Solving
8. Check Your Understanding
9. Summary

What you get

• 365 days of access from the date of purchase
• A certificate of completion when you finish the course
• Your place is saved, so you can stop and come back whenever you like
• Works on a computer, tablet or phone

You can also get this course, and every other course in the library, with All Access for $99.99 a year.