Marinucci: Focus on solutions helps to boost workers' stock

A worker's natural focus on practical solutions often identifies a potential long-term employee — not to mention one with managerial potential.

Experience has shown that some workers instinctively complain rather than contribute to the team's overall effort, while others intuitively generate solutions to problems and challenges.

Complaints tend to cause discord, but solutions usually increase profits and foster a friendlier, warmer work environment.

Surely, additional profits are always welcome at your business, but a positive work atmosphere also is valuable — perhaps more valuable than ever today.

For one thing, these are unusually difficult times for many employees. For another, workers typically spend more time per week at your tire dealership or service shop than they do at home. Those are great reasons to minimize stress — wherever practically possible — throughout your business.

During my travels throughout the country, bosses sometime have surprised me with an apparent inability to distinguish one type of worker from the other. Their assessment seems to be that a complainer and a solver are essentially the same because each one has a pulse.

Mind you, I don't claim to be a human resources whiz. But as a reporter and salesman, I have tried to observe people to the best of my abilities.

With that in mind, it's often obvious to me which workers are natural complainers and which are solvers after working with them for a day or less.

I urge owners and managers to listen — then listen some more. These personality types usually reveal more than they realize during their routine interactions at work.

Clearly, working with a crew comprising different personalities may be difficult — challenging, to say the least. However, some bosses I have worked with seem to be jaded. It appears that they have tuned out much of the chatter and interactions around them as a method of coping with people.

But to me, this coping mechanism surely has its limitations. For instance, I have spent time at various auto service businesses doing my research. Sometimes an owner or manager has tapped me for my first impressions of the facility and personnel.

Perhaps I responded that technician Joe is very talented but also gripes a great deal about his coworkers and surroundings. Or maybe I observed that service salesman Charley sounds very knowledgeable but also has a complaint about nearly everything within his purview.

All too often, an owner or manager reacts indifferently. For example, he may assert that employees are inherently grumpy and critical. Basically, therefore, he's become immune to griping and sniping from people like Joe and Charley.

"If those fellows aren't complaining about something, we know it's time to check their pulse," the boss tells me.

Some of the savviest owners and managers I know have been cultivating a different culture at their service shops and tire dealerships. First and foremost, they have pitched problem-solving at team meetings as well as personal notes to each worker.

Part of the pitch is that workers are welcome to complain, but anytime they gripe about something, they're required to offer a solution. Or, at the very least, the boss deputizes the worker to research potential solutions for a particular problem.

There may be a variety of unsolved problems at hand. For example, technicians may want a more effective but user-friendly floor cleaner for the service bays. Or the service sales people may want simple, cost-effective entertainment for young kids who're running around the customer lounge.

Second, these bosses reward every employee who solves a problem. The worker may personally create some sort of solution or discover a fix by diligently researching the issue. Either way, that worker's effort is worth something to the business.

In some cases, a cash bonus may be appropriate. For other employees, paid time off may be the most meaningful reward. Savvy owners try to tailor the bonus to the individual worker.

Third, savvy owners and managers tell their team members that they aren't fostering some sort of cutthroat competition among employees. Not everyone can come up with a solution — and, therefore, a reward.

But overall, team members should concentrate more on potential solutions than simply whining and griping.

Last but not least, bosses have reminded me that employees who focus on solutions tend to be stronger managerial candidates than whiny workers are. For example, the solution-focused worker still practices that skill after being promoted to manager.

Therefore, these bosses told me, the solution-minded person is much more inclined to solve his or her problems on their own.

On the other hand, the whiner or complainer continues complaining after being promoted. And instead of facing various issues on their own, they kick those problems upstairs to the owner or another manager.

Perhaps this manager never was tasked with genuine problem-solving duties. Or maybe he or she lacked the skill or initiative to do so. They have found it easier to funnel issues to the big boss.

Routinely kicking any and all issues up to the boss' door may reflect poor leadership and/or poor grooming of managers. Regardless of the root cause, managers who fail to resolve problems on their own — at their level — may be a drag on the business.

Certainly, they're a drag on the boss' time.