Who Owns This Problem, Anyway?

In the introduction to her article, "Who Owns This Problem, Anyway?," in the Exchange Essentials article collection, Dealing with Difficult People, Jane Harris makes this observation prior to outlining 10 steps on "How to Turn a Problem Maker into a Problem Solver:"

"Those of us who started out as classroom teachers are usually very good at helping children learn to solve their own problems. I wish I had an extra 15 minute break for each time I've heard a teacher calmly redirect a tattling child back to the situation, or watched a teacher carefully guide children through the process of learning to solve their own problems. With children in a classroom, we work very hard to empower them to be self-disciplined and to learn the tools to be interpersonal problem solvers. We use phrases like 'Tell Kim how you feel' and 'Tell Paul that it makes you sad when he says he doesn't like you.'

"Our staff deserve similar encouragement. When an adult comes to us with a problem, we need to take a few seconds and ask ourselves some important questions: 'Is this a problem that really concerns me?' 'Does this problem directly affect me or the center as a whole?' When the problem is two people in conflict, our initial response is often that we must somehow intervene. Especially in the case of feuding staff members, the result can be tension in the classroom and perhaps in the center as a whole. But adults, like the children we teach, need to be able to communicate with others. As directors, we need to empower those who work for us to solve their own problems."

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