Chad Silverstein used to solve every coworker's problem until a colleague told him to stop. He set a rule: handle conflicts directly with each other. It worked. Dependency dropped, the office got better, and people learned to fix things themselves.
Chapters
So I don't know if I've told the story before in our daily disciplines, but it's worth sharing again now. When I first started working with Chet, I had the box of tissues on my desk and I used to solve everybody's problems. Everyone came to me with their conflict. I liked solving problems. It's something that I love to do and I love to help people. So I welcomed it. And again, my thought was always, if someone's not happy or they're going through a hard time and I can make it a little bit easier and better for them, they'll be a better employee, they'll be able to work and do well without having whatever problem they have as an obstacle. The problem is that I had a lot of women working for me and they would all sit and tell me the problems. And a lot of times, whether it was work or not, they dumped their problems on me. I became the office dump truck. And by the time Chet came in and asked me why the hell I'm spending so much time now, I'm work related issues, know, doing everything from loaning people money to, you know, dealing with relationship issues in the office, trying to resolve conflict between two teammates. He asked me one day if I wanted that to stop. And I said, yeah, I did. You know, I was, I was definitely getting burned out from it. And I knew I couldn't continue that, you know, if we kept growing. And so he just told me, the next time they come in, all you have to do is put your hand up and ask them if they spoke to the person that they have the problem with. And when they say no, call the person in and make them do it right in front of you. So there's no way I'm doing that. There's no way. I mean, talk about uncomfortable and just, you know, just, there's no way. So he said, well, then just embrace the fact that you're going to keep doing this forever. You'll be the office shrink. And that's just how it's going to be. So instead, I decided to have a company meeting and I blasted out to everybody, what's going to happen the next time they walk into my office to complain about somebody in the office and expecting me to go do something about it, which again, I had set the precedent. So, you know, I had, I. This is my issue to deal with. But I told them if they do that, I'm going to ask them if they ask the person, and I'm going to call the person in, so they have to go deal with the problems on their own and stop bringing their problems to me. This is all about passing the tension where it belongs to. That day that I did, that was the day that everything changed because nobody came to me ever again with their problems. In fact, I found myself kind of butting in and being a little bit nosy to try to find out what was going on, because they did such a good job around the office keeping those issues away from me and dealing with conflict between each other and not pigeonholing me in as that third triangle point of their relationships. And overall, I think I was not as connected knowing what was going on as much in the office. That was a good thing. It created a healthier culture, and it certainly made my life a lot easier. So remember, if you're a people pleaser and you like to be nosy and you're in everybody's problems and you like to hear what's going on and give advice, I would caution you. There's definitely some potential issues with being that person, and you're not doing anyone any favors by enabling them and not letting them deal with the problems on their own. And if you're in charge of your culture, you're. You're just setting yourself up for a complete failure because you're not teaching your employees and your teammates how to deal with conflict. And so, again, as the leader, your job is to influence and guide. You shouldn't be answering and solving everyone's questions and problems. You should be questioning their answers and their problems and their solutions, and again, empowering them to kind of become stronger and become leaders in your office. So something to think about if you're stuck in a triangle.
