Early in my career, I walked into my manager’s office and preceded to tell him how the approach we were taking for a software problem was the wrong one. I elaborated on how wrong it was – talking for almost 10 minutes, I laid out all my reasons.

Rich sat quietly and listened. I finally completed my analysis of why the solution was wrong and looked at him expectantly.

He said, “What do you suggest we do?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I was too busy thinking of how wrong the solution was, so I had to say, “I don’t know.”

He very evenly replied, “Don’t you ever come to me with a problem without a solution. Come back when you have a solution.”

Don’t just point out problems.

It was like a bucket of cold water hit me in the face. I slunk out of his office and back to my desk and when I was done feeling like a complete idiot, I began thinking about alternative options. Then I took some of my ideas to the lead engineer on the team and we sat around brainstorming and discussing options and alternatives. We worked on it until we came up with a better solution that we both felt good about. Then we took that idea back to Rich and had a much better conversation.

Thankfully, this happened early on in my career because it was the best thing any manager has ever said to me. Since that time many years ago, I do my best to never present my boss problems without solutions.

After all, it’s not my manager’s job to solve all of the problems, now is it? That’s why they have me.