Problem-Solving Mentoring

"You're too helpful." The feedback that confused me, then changed everything. My manager at McKinsey said this during my review. I was baffled. How could being helpful be a problem? Then she explained: "You're solving everyone else's problems instead of teaching them to solve their own." 🎯 The pattern she noticed: Team member struggled with Excel? I'd fix their model. Someone needed research? I'd do it for them. Junior consultant confused? I'd give them the answer. The problem: I was creating dependency, not capability. As I started managing people, this was actually a deficiency! Her advice changed everything: ❌ Instead of: "Here's the solution" ✅ Try: "What approaches have you considered?" ❌ Instead of: "Let me fix that" ✅ Try: "Let me show you how to fix that" ❌ Instead of: "The answer is X" ✅ Try: "What would happen if we tried X?" The shift from helper to enabler: 🔸 Ask before answering - "What's your initial thinking?" 🔸 Guide, don't give - "What if you approached it this way..." 🔸 Teach the method - "Here's the framework I use for these situations" The result? My team became stronger. I became a leader. The counterintuitive truth: The best way to help people isn't to solve their problems. It's to help them become better problem-solvers. Your value isn't just what you can do. It's who you can help others become. Don't let your need to provide an answer come in the way of unlocking your team's growth. ------------------------- 🔖 Want to try this approach in the future? Save this post for your reference 📤 Have a friend who might love this? Share this with your work bestie :) ---------------------- 👋🏻 Hi, I'm Ruchi Aggarwal, and I share posts and resources about careers, consulting, MBA admissions and startups. Follow me here: Ruchi Aggarwal 📢 BONUS: If you're looking to supercharge your career, my 1:1 sessions are open here: https://lnkd.in/dfWzegyS    Mentoresult #career #mentorship #mentoring #success #linkedin #jobs #mba #bschool #resume #cvhelp #jobsearch #goals #mcKinsey #consulting #managementconsulting #Life #mentor #careercoach #iima #mbaprep #resumehelp 

Something that sounds stupidly simple, but often doesn’t come naturally to founders: One of the biggest gifts you can give someone is to make them feel capable of handling things themselves. What you’ll think this means is showing them all manner of ways they could solve it. Jumping into problem solving right away. This might help - it often does. But it can also wait. There’s something way more important to do first. What is actually needed first is an extreme form of listening that can take a lot of practice to get right. Ask an open ended question and shut up, maintain eye contact, make encouraging noises and do not interrupt. Ask if there’s more. Repeat. You’ll create space for them to creatively think about their own problem. It’s about them. Not you. Let go of your need to be helpful by making comments or suggestions. Be the coach, not the hero. If you start by solving, people feel judged and bombarded rather than soothed or understood. You can move into solve mode later don’t worry. This will leave them feeling greater autonomy and competence, and encourages them to naturally stay in discovery mode. Once you’ve spent some time in this place, more than you think you want to, THEN you can ask what they want to do, and then there may or may not be a natural place to great creative with them about possible approaches. They’ll feel supported, and most times solve their own problem right there, with you taking the role of a mirror that shows them their own resourcefulness. Over time this compounds into highly effective, self reliant humans, capable of interrogating their own challenges more creatively. Jumping into solve mode straight away is only investing in you continuously being the source of good ideas, which neither scales nor is it probably right (founder mode aside, your people will collectively have more better ideas than you will.) Life as a founder is more fun when our colleagues are in good form and feel powerfully capable.

Day 8/30 of the Idea to Revenue Mentorship: Something magical happened today. I stopped talking. The group started solving each other's problems. One participant was stuck on their product format. Before I could jump in, three others shared what worked for them. Problem solved in 10 minutes. It made me realise: The best mentorship isn't mentor-to-student. It's student-to-student with a guide on the side. Three powerful shifts emerged: 1. PEER FEEDBACK HITS DIFFERENT When I critique, they listen politely. When a peer who just solved the same problem shares? They take notes furiously. 2. COLLECTIVE WISDOM > INDIVIDUAL EXPERTISE 100 people trying 100 approaches beats one mentor's playbook every time. 3. ACCOUNTABILITY COMPOUNDS Disappointing your peers who are grinding alongside you? That's harder than disappointing a mentor. This is why accelerators work. Why building in public beats building in private. You don't just need a mentor. You need mirrors — people on the same journey. Question: Who are you building alongside? If the answer is "no one" — that might be your biggest bottleneck. Day 8 complete. 22 days to revenue. P.S. The participants helping others the most? They're moving the fastest. Teaching forces clarity.

An executive client confessed last month: "I'm drowning. My team brings me issues, I offer to help, and suddenly I'm working weekends on their deliverables." Sound familiar? Here's what's actually happening: Every time someone brings you a problem and you say "Send it to me" or "Let me think about it," you've just adopted their responsibility. My client was carrying 23 problems that belonged to other people. TWENTY-THREE. No wonder she had no time for strategy. She was too busy solving everyone else's problems. We tried an experiment. For one week, she could only respond to problems with: "What have you tried so far?" "What options are you considering?" "What do you recommend?" "What's your next step?" "When will you update me?" Week one was brutal. Her team stood frozen, waiting for her to solve things like always. Week two? They started bringing solutions, not just problems. By week three, she'd reclaimed 15 hours. Her team was making decisions. Real ones. The shift: 🎯 Each problem stays with its owner 💡 Next move is theirs, not yours ✨ You coach the approach, not do the work 🌱 Schedule your check-ins (minimize those swoops!) Your team doesn't need you to solve their problems. They need you to believe that they can solve them. Which of your team's problems will you let them solve this week?

Mentoring startups in uncertain times means not having all the answers. Lately, the market is shifting so fast that many past strategies aren’t relevant anymore. Instead of giving advice based on what worked before, I’ll need to co-create solutions with founders in real time - because none of us have all the answers right now. The biggest shift for me comes down to sharpening my listening. Innosphere founders jokingly call me their “startup psychologist” because so much of what I do is listen - not just prescribe solutions. And this year, that’s more important than ever. My new mentoring strategy will require me to: 🔎Pay close attention to the challenges founders are facing collectively and ask - what’s emerging as a universal challenge? 📚Resist the urge to jump in with solutions too early. The right answers come from fully understanding the problem first. 🤝Work alongside founders to test strategies, not just recommend them. We’ll all need to get comfortable experimenting, learning, and adjusting as we go. Mentorship isn’t about having the perfect answer. In fact, it’s never really been about that. Good mentors are good partners, ones who figure things out with their mentees. And right now, that collaboration is more important than ever.

Good mentors frustrate you on purpose! They refuse to give you the quick answer. They respond to your problems with more questions. They make you think when you just want solutions. Most people want shortcuts. The formula. The step-by-step guide. The guaranteed playbook. I get it. Answers feel productive. Questions feel like more work. But here's what my experience has taught me: Leaders who memorise solutions fail during their first real crisis. Leaders who learn to think clearly navigate problems they've never seen before. The difference? One group learned answers. The other group learned how to find answers. Markets shift overnight. Industries get disrupted. The strategy that worked last year becomes irrelevant next quarter. But you know what never expires, the ability to ask the right questions, to dig deeper and to challenge your own assumptions. I've experienced both sides of this. And I think giving someone an answer might solve one problem. But teaching them to ask better questions can solve hundreds. Good mentorship feels harder at the moment. You leave conversations with more questions than answers. More work to do, not less. But you walk away with something better than a solution. You walk away with confidence in your ability to find solutions. And the best mentors resist the urge to just hand over answers. They know that creating independent thinkers beats creating dependent followers every time. Because when you can ask better questions, you can handle whatever the market throws at you. When you can only follow answers, you're stuck when the rules change. . . If you're looking to sharpen your thinking or work through a challenge, feel free to reach out. Happy to help you find the right questions. . #mentorship #leadership

there is a big difference in reaching out to a mentor, manager, coach with a problem you are struggling with and having them say "here's how I'd solve it" vs. having them say "here's how I'd go about coming up with a solution" and then walking you through their thought processes. Only the latter of those responses provides an actual learning opportunity while also acknowledging that context is often the most important piece of information in designing a good solution.

Answers Before Questions? The Problem-Solving Trap I've found that, more often than not, solving the problem and chasing solutions are not the same thing. We get so excited about the solution that we often ignore the real issue at hand. 👉 What are solving for? I've found that asking this simple question is like my secret ingredient for success, no matter where I am in life. 👉Supervising Master's Theses: When I'm guiding students through their research design and surveys, I won't let them move forward until they clearly answer, "What are we solving for with this design?" It's a game-changer. 👉Coaching People and Teams: Goal-setting is crucial, and often people come to me with ready-made solutions they want help implementing. I'm here to help, but first, I dig deeper. "What are we solving for?" I love using the 5 Whys technique to really get to the root. 👉Running HR Programs and Designing L&D Interventions: In our fast-paced, achievement-driven environment, it's so easy to jump straight to solutions. But I make sure we always pause and ask, "What are we solving for?" (My team and leadership might be sick of me by now! 😅) 👉At Home and in Family Life: Even when I get that itch to change countries, companies, or apartments, I ground myself by honestly asking, "What am I REALLY solving for?" Most of the times, moving countries is not really the answer :) My Six Sigma training has definitely made me a better coach, HR Program Manager, and maybe even a better life partner. 😊 What about you? Have you ever jumped into implementing a solution, only to realize later that you weren't addressing the core problem? Let's discuss! #Coaching #LeadershipDevelopment #PersonalGrowth #ProfessionalDevelopment #MindsetMatters

If you’re waiting for a mentor to swoop in and solve your problems, you’re doing it wrong. A mentor is not there to hand you the answers. They’re there to guide you—but only if you’ve already put in the effort. 🔹 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞. You have to take the initiative. 🔹 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝. Don’t just say, “Help me!” Instead, say: “Here’s my challenge, here’s what I’ve already considered, and here’s where I need your insights.” 🔹 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. What am I missing? What have I overlooked? Who else should I talk to? Great mentorship isn’t about dependency—it’s about empowerment. Start with a plan, take ownership, and watch how much more impactful your mentorship experience becomes.

I am still glowing from the fantastic opportunity I had today to interview Harvard's J. Stuart Ablon, PhD to share his revolutionary collaborative problem solving insights.   His groundbreaking message? People do well if they can! Success is about skill, not will.   Dr. Ablon's Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach, developed at Think:Kids Harvard (https://thinkkids.org), challenges traditional beliefs about motivation. Instead of asking "Why won't they?" we should ask "Why can't they?" This paradigm shift introduces the powerful ABC framework for problem-solving: Plan A: Direct intervention Plan B: Collaborative solution-finding Plan C: Strategic flexibility   Key takeaways reveal how chronic stress can impair skill development and decision-making, while psychological safety and empathy are crucial for team success. Rather than focusing on extrinsic motivators, leaders should nurture mastery, autonomy, and connectedness.   When facing challenges with team dynamics, Dr. Ablon advocates for curiosity over judgment. He shared the motto “curious, not furious!” Even seemingly difficult behaviors often stem from skill gaps rather than intentional disruption. The path forward? Create environments where people can develop skills safely, practice empathy, and engage in genuine collaborative problem-solving.   This transformative approach promises stronger teams, better outcomes, and more sustainable solutions, all through the power of understanding and developing core skills.