How to Solve Group Problems

Melissa has a common problem dealing with her colleagues and their calendars. Her office uses a calendar that gets shared over their network. Colleagues let her see the busy status on their calendars, but they block details so she doesn’t know where they are when she needs them for something important. She has a public and private calendar and wants to know how she can get her colleagues to do the same.

Melissa has just discovered one of the hidden truths about productivity: sometimes your own productivity depends on your office mates. Begging them to help doesn’t necessarily work. Going on team-building exercises and catching them on a “trust fall” doesn’t work; they trust you, but that doesn’t mean they want to help you. Even if you drop them, they don’t necessarily want to help. Of course, drop them hard enough and you can induce amnesia and convince them you’re their life-long pal. Then they’ll help. Only their memory has a way of coming back at the most inopportune times. Don’t ask how I know this.

How to Solve Group Problems

Your problem is that everyone has a calendar system that works best for them, but for the team to work well, it really requires everyone subordinate their personal style to a common tool. In effect, you want them to become part of the Borg, only in the real-life workplace, resistance isn’t futile. At least, not for them.

People aren’t nice. You’ll have to persuade them. You do that by raising the problems to the group and framing the problems as group problems. Then you let the group choose a solution. Feel free to propose your solution—everyone keep private and public calendars—as one possibility, but you’ll only get people to buy-in if they have a hand in designing or choosing the system you use.

Have the Group Solve the Problem

First, you need to get everyone all scared and worried about the problem.

Just remember: worried co-workers are willing co-workers, especially if they think you’ll come to the rescue. Call a group meeting and explain the problem. Very Important People are waiting in conference rooms for team members, and the team members are nowhere to be found—and because you can’t see the details on their calendars, you can’t find them. Or, your boss needs to meet with someone and there’s no way to know where they are. This, in turn, means the group misses important opportunities. It also has the potential to make the absent person look irresponsible. And you would never want one of your co-workers to look irresponsible.

How to Have the Group Solve the Problem

Put the problem in terms of how it harms the group, not just how inconvenient it is for you. I hate to break it to you, but even though they pretend to, they don’t really care about making your life better. All those holiday cards? They just give them so you won’t throw eggs at their cars. And while we’re facing harsh reality, let’s face it: they won’t become your friend if they think you’ll only be using their friendship to make yourself happy. They’ll help, but they need to see a reason for it.

Group Solutions

Once you’ve managed to get the group to acknowledge that there’s a problem, you can make the magic happen. Make a list of ideas. After listing ideas, have everyone vote on them.

Be careful not to present your idea as the “only” solution. In other words, don’t say, “We can all use shared calendars.” Instead, say, “What do you think we can do to improve the group calendar?” That phrasing helps everyone feel that they’re empowered to come up with a different solution if they prefer it.

Conclusion

The important thing is to involve everyone. Let them choose their solutions.