- Just ahead on leadership lessons for home, work and life, it's question time.

How would you rate your problem solving skills?

Tonight's critical conversation puts two more great Central Illinois leaders in the spotlight sharing tips and strategies to help us sharpen our problem solving skills.

And it starts right now.

(upbeat music) Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

I often say my title should be Professional Problem Solver.

As a nonprofit CEO and leadership consultant, experience has taught me that every business problem is solvable, but I'm always looking for new ways and new strategies to get even better at it.

And tonight's conversation will add more tools to our problem solving tool belts.

I love studying leadership and Walt Disney remains one of my favorite leaders to analyze.

In preparing for tonight's show, I learned something new from that amazing creative leader, and I have to share it with you right now.

There were always three chairs in Walt's office.

The first chair helped with this problem solving.

It was the dreamer chair.

Then there was the realest chair, and then the spoiler chair.

In the Dreamer chair he allowed himself to create possibilities without constraints.

In the realist chair he would consider the resources available to him.

And in the spoiler chair, he'd consider all the pitfalls.

He knew he could solve every problem by looking at it from those three perspectives.

Well, we've got two great central Illinois leaders to meet now.

So let's jump into our problem solving conversation.

First we have Spencer Null, the Director of Product Development for Natural Fiber Welding.

And let's meet Sheriff Chris Watkins from the Peoria County Sheriff's Department.

Okay, friends, let's talk about it.

I want you to tell me first, are you in, which of those chairs would you sit in?

The dreamer chair, the realest chair, or the spoiler chair?

And what's just more natural for you, Spencer?

- I'd say the Dreamer Chair is more natural for me.

I definitely am a strategy person and so I'm always looking for what's the creative way that we can solve this problem.

- Sheriff Watkins, which chair are you?

- Probably the realist chair, just because everything I deal with is usually live.

It's going on right now.

It's a real time.

So I have to make those decisions usually within seconds.

So probably realist chair.

- It makes a lot of sense.

But when we're talking about problem solving, what is sort of your go-to thing when you've got a big problem ahead of you?

- I lean on my team, right?

And I don't wanna make all the decisions myself.

So if you surround yourself with a good team, if it's a problem that you can kind of analyze and just take the time and think a couple steps ahead and have different opinions.

You don't want your opinion always to be the opinion that you go forward with.

Having a great team can give you the advice.

And I usually lean on my team for a lot of my decisions.

- Spencer, I wanna recognize the fact you have that beautiful pin on that you've been recognized as one of "Peoria Magazine's", 40 under 40 leaders.

And talk to us as what might be someone consider a newer leader.

What is your go-to when you're dealing with problem solving?

What's kind of the first step?

- So the first step, 'cause a lot of problems in business manifest in similar ways.

They're usually a problem of scarcity of either a scope, a schedule, or a resource.

And so when one of those things has be become limited, you've gotta kind of look at what can I change or modify about those others in order to get there.

- Sheriff Watkins, I wanna jump off that.

When we're talking about getting there, if we have a a reduction in resources, it has to be hard to keep your ranks all the positions filled.

There's been all of this great resignation, lots of changing.

How do you deal with problems if you're short staffed?

- And that's, and it affects services.

So that's why recruitment and retention has been one of my big things for the last few years.

In policing nationwide it's really hard.

Just like some other occupations, but specifically policing.

So you have to think outside the box.

We're dealing with the newer generations, so you have to think on their level, how they want to interact, what we see, they wanna be more engaged, even in the application process and just getting out there.

COVID really shut everything down.

So we couldn't do job fairs, couldn't do jail tours to get high school and college kids in to see what our profession's about.

So it is nice moving forward from that.

And we're starting to see more applicants.

It's not perfect, not at all, but we're getting there.

So I'm positive about the outlook of especially our community and in policing.

- Spencer, have you seen a difference in how younger leaders problem solve versus some of those more experienced leaders?

- Yeah, that's definitely a bit of a shift there.

I think that young leaders can learn a lot from how more experienced leaders do things.

There's a rather than jumping right in and taking on the problem without really thinking about what the best possible solutions could be, they kind of charge down, how can I throw effort at this instead, right?

But at the same time, young leaders can come up with some of the best creativity when they do take that time to do that problem solving and that thinking upfront.

- Do we see any challenges?

What are some pitfalls to problem solving that we could warn people in advance, Sheriff Watkins?

- I really just encourage thinking a couple steps ahead.

If I do it this way, think what's gonna happen.

Not just what that first reaction is.

A few steps up beyond that.

It seems like that works well in the decision making that I make.

'Cause we talk about short-term decisions and long-term decisions and a lot of your short-term decisions affect your long-term ones.

So you really need to think ahead and sometimes you just don't know.

You have to make the decision, go with it.

And then I think we've used the word way too much the last couple years of pivoting, but it seems like that's all we do is pivot where you think you're going in one direction and then something happens and then you have to make adjustments.

- Spencer, those pitfalls to problem solving that we can kind of identify and avoid bigger problems down the road.

What do you see as some of them?

- Yeah, I think a lot of times it's solving a problem that doesn't need to be solved right now.

Oftentimes we just jump in.

- How do we decide?

- Oh, that tough.

It's really tough, but it's when does this need to be solved by?

Often it's a problem that does need to be solved, but we don't have to make that decision today.

We can collect a little bit more information.

But if we wait too long, then we'll go over the other side of the fence and end up creating a bigger problem, because we didn't solve it when we needed to.

- Now you both kind of talked about that, collecting information, having data, being a realist.

How do we develop the pieces that we need to solve for?

We're looking for that data X, Y, Z before you solve the problem.

Sheriff, what do you think?

I know that's a hard one.

- That's a hard one.

Yeah, make sure you're collecting the right data, because especially like I'm in politics now.

I'm an elected official.

So sometimes you get information that's not even correct thrown at you.

So you really have to decipher what's what, being a realist, you have to find the facts.

And that's hard to do, especially these days in politics, is really trying to find the facts and just be out there, be honest.

I think as sheriff, that's what most people want is just an honest sheriff, a law enforcement officer and a factual one.

And not play the political game.

So that's what I try to do.

- Spencer, has social media played a role in problem solving?

'Cause there's, we've seen a lot of disinformation sometimes that can come up and misinformation that can come up in social media.

And if you're trying to solve a problem and you see this, or if this is the go-to place for information, how do you avoid a pitfall?

- Yeah, it's what's that truth source, right?

I feel like that has become very skewed with social media, is anybody with an opinion can post something and they become a truth source for somebody else.

And it's kind of self-perpetuating.

So you've gotta find what it is that you believe as the truth source and really rely on that and kind of block out some of that noise.

- What are some of your go-to resources that you know are tried and true and safe when you're trying to problem solve?

- I trust the Bible.

That's my first go-to.

And then trusted mentors, people who have spoken into your life and situations in the past that you've known have had good results.

Those are are great ones to go back to when you have a new problem as well.

- Sheriff Watkins, what are your go-tos?

- Facebook, no I'm joking.

(all laughing) - I love it.

- I love the mentor part.

I use that all the time.

Luckily I've had, I've worked under great leaders, so as you see in the news every day, there's always something that we're dealing with that's new.

So not reinventing the wheel, I can go back to a past one, a good supervisor mentor and run things by them and they gimme good advice most of the time.

- Many people, it's been said that there is a crisis in leadership these days.

And as problem solvers, how do we, not all leaders have the skills to problem solve.

How do you know which professionals to look at and which ones not to look at?

Sheriff Watkins.

- I think it's about developing, I read a good line last week.

We have infants, toddlers leading infants, because our workforce has got so young, because the last few years I think we've seen a lot of people retire when they can instead of sticking around.

So we've lost a lot of experience and a lot of leadership.

So now you have younger, younger leaders, which is a good thing, right?

Newer ideas, but also, you could send leaders to every school and nation, but you have to have that experience.

So we really have to develop, even if you only have a few years, if you identify someone that wants to be a leader, you gotta develop them sooner than later, because time flies.

They could be in your spot in no time.

- Spencer, from that standpoint, how do you teach a younger employee how to be an effective problem solver?

- I think it starts with coaching.

You've gotta demonstrate it first, right?

There's a big difference between coaching and teaching, right?

In coaching your gathering feedback from them while you're working with them and kind of seeing where their pitfalls are and what they're natural naturally good at and what they're naturally not good at.

And then you can choose which areas it is that you need to push into to help grow them.

- Sheriff Watkins?

- Have an open mind.

If you have an older leader that's been around for a long time, it's not just, it's not just my way or the highway, right?

You have to be open to change.

And that's sometimes that's hard for leaders to do.

There are new ideas out there and to be more efficient and just have an open mind, which I try to, we have a lot of younger leaders in my department, so it's listening.

They wanna be listened.

They wanna be able to have feedback both ways, right?

So, it's actually listening, taking the time to listen to what their ideas are and following through with some of those too.

- So, but let's talk for a minute.

What if some of those ideas aren't the right ideas for you as a realist?

And you have to help them see that you're not telling them they're wrong, it's just not right for right now perhaps.

How do you help them when they have this great idea and they want to run with it, but you know through experience, perhaps it's not right for now?

- And it, yeah, it depends, maybe you let them try it out.

As long as it doesn't affect operations too much, let 'em try it out and be there for 'em when maybe it doesn't work out as great.

Give 'em some advice so maybe they can change their philosophy or their idea and just be there for 'em.

- Well here are some tips from the Forbes Coaches Council to become a proactive business problem solver.

First reflect with others.

What should we continue doing, consider stop doing or start doing?

Research and anticipate, understand reality by managing perceptions and actively seeking solutions.

Use the buffer technique.

Don't schedule back to back meetings.

Make sure meetings are 30 to 45 minutes and try to always leave yourself at least 30 minutes in between meetings.

Often after a meeting, you might have the best solution when you give yourself a little processing time and separate people from the problem.

Focusing on the problem rather than the personalities helps us create a win-win solution without personal attacks.

Finally, ask the right questions.

Great leaders ask great questions and plan ahead.

Each month set some time aside to ask yourself questions that will lead you to working on the right things for the future and not just for the urgent.

Let's talk about that for a moment.

Working on a problem for the future and not for the urgent.

Sheriff, talk to us all about that, because sometimes everything seems like a fire.

- It is, it seems like we're firemen, we're putting fires out every day.

So you could be working on something that's long-term, but then something else comes up, especially in policing all the time, right?

And then you have to pivot and deal with that.

So then something gets put on the back burner.

So I mean, you have to be very organized and that's where that having that team where you can delegate certain responsibilities.

So you can keep your vision long term and don't get sidetracked, which is easy to do these days.

- Spencer, let's talk for a minute about separating the problem from the personality.

Help us, do you have any strategies with that?

Because sometimes it's just so hard.

- It is, and some of it just comes with how you frame your questions, right?

Whether it be questions you ask yourself or questions you ask in a meeting, the way that you frame those, you can ask it in such a way that it's pointed at a person or that this thing happened, right?

But if you point it at the problem, then you can really separate the two and find either the right person to go solve the problem or not demean somebody in the process.

- How hard is it to give yourself some space to process situations after meetings?

I mean, Spencer, do you go from back to back to back meetings?

I mean, I'm guilty.

- It's so hard.

There's so many days where I have back to back meetings almost the whole day and taking that time to process, it has to start in advance.

You can't get to that day that's so busy and try to triage and keep that time to process.

But blocking time on your calendar for think time is some of the most well spent time that you could do.

And it's, you've gotta protect that time.

- Sheriff Watkins, how do you protect for think time?

I've gotta imagine that your life is just crazy and you're in crisis mode nonstop.

- Yeah, we're a 24/7 operations.

So it's, you're always constantly dealing with something if it's 1:00 AM so it, it is nonstop.

But having that work life balance, you have to set some time for yourself.

If that means if you get out of town for a couple days, that's where having that great team is right.

Delegate your authority to somebody so you can spend time with your family, which is more important than any career out there, right?

Your crew, when you retire, your crew is not gonna be there for you.

It's your family.

So you have to make sure you have that work life balance, because it will affect your work too if you have problems at home.

So it's tough though.

It's really tough.

- How do we help people understand?

Because I thank you that you admit to it being tough, because sometimes I think professionals will be like, oh, I got this, I got this.

And there's a transparency in you that I suspect that your team really appreciates.

How do you be that transparent leader and problem solver?

- I don't fake anything.

I'm just, once again, a realist, right?

I'm very factual.

I take politics out of it.

Just being like being a honest person.

And I think people can see that.

I mean, if I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't be in this position I am today if I wasn't honest.

- But you sure don't seem like a politician, just saying.

- I'm not a politician.

- Spencer talk to us a little bit.

What have we not touched on?

What are some things that you have found that work for you when it comes to problem solving?

I don't want anyone to miss out.

- Yeah, so one of the things is, I touched on this briefly before, it's solving the right problems, right?

There's so many tasks that any of us could do in any given day, whether it's it's fighting fires and things that are very urgent in the moment or things that are, I'm a little sluggish after my big lunch and I'm tired, so I'm gonna do some low leverage tasks, right?

It's finding those right things to do at the right times of the day when you have the most energy and it's attacking your most important things.

So what I call that and what I work with my team on is we set a daily big three and it's your three big tasks for that day.

And if you left that day only getting those three done, three things done, you'd feel accomplished for that day.

And it helps you to frame those up in advance before you start your work day and keep you from getting too distracted by the urgent things that come up and scream louder than the important things.

- Is there a time of day that works better for you, that you're at your best ability to solve problems or tackle that big issue?

- It's different for everybody.

And so you kind of have to gauge that.

A lot of my team, the time to work on their best problems is in the afternoon, but for me, my best deep work time is in the morning, right?

Like nine till like noon, right before lunch.

That's when I really think well and do deep work.

So I try to schedule my meetings in the afternoon and do my deep work in the morning.

But with my team being opposite of that, you've gotta get creative and kind of skirt around that day.

So you're enabling them to be successful as well.

- I'm a morning girl too.

Sheriff Watkins, how about you?

Is there a time of day that you catch yourself in the most creative, the most ability to be the most successful at problem solving?

- Definitely mornings.

That's when I fire off my emails.

I try to get all that done beginning the morning, because I'm usually out and about in the community.

So during the day and I also try to set time aside to be out.

We have 180 employees at the sheriff's office.

There's a lot of different departments.

So I wanna be seen.

I think a lot of people you hear people quit their bosses not their jobs, right?

So I wanna be that boss where they actually see, they talk to and just being empathetic.

It goes a long way with employees from what I've talked to and heard.

- And I love that strategy.

But I wanna just be real for a minute.

One of the things that I'm hearing, even in for-profit government, that a lot of people, because of the environment that we live in now, folks will come to us and have come to me and said, hey, I want x thousands of dollars more in order to do my job.

And I've heard of a lot of for-profit companies giving them very large, huge raises, because they don't wanna lose an employee these days.

Sometimes I suspect in the government world you might not have as much flexibility to help someone from a salary standpoint.

How do you handle that employee.

That again, that's a problem you have to deal with.

- Right, and I'm dealing with that every day it seems like, because the market out there is a worker's market, right?

They can go around.

So, and staffing is so important for me.

'Cause I know if we lose staffing, services suffer and for public safety, that's not good, right?

So we have to get creative and it's not all about money either.

The younger generation right now is about time off.

So if my budget doesn't allow to raise their salaries or whatever, I can give them more time off.

We give our deputies take home cars.

Just get to think creatively to make sure they stay with you.

- Spencer, what are some ways that you're able to handle that?

- I think with the younger generation, it's a sense of purpose.

If they can arrive at work and know what moves the needle that day, what they really need to get done, and then accomplish that throughout their day and leave at the end of the day feeling like they really did something meaningful that day, but they still have energy to go home to their families and recharge and truly be present with their families, then they can show up the next morning fully present and ready for work too.

And that's how you not only keep very, a very good staff, right?

But you also empower people to live their best life.

And I think that's even more important than the money.

- How do you handle that contentious situation?

Whether we talked a little bit about someone asking for a raise more than you can afford, but maybe you've had that meeting, Sheriff Watkins, that people did not agree.

They saw multiple different sides.

Tempers are flaring a little bit.

You're seeking the solution for everyone to keep everyone calm and to keep the services flowing.

How do you handle it?

- Just having, honestly just having that conversation with them.

That goes a long way with employees.

If they can have one-on-one time with the boss and actually be heard and try to come up with something to make them happy.

To make us happy.

But they also, and just knowing the why.

Why are we doing this?

A lot of times it's death by email, right?

You get so many emails and this is what why you're supposed to do it.

It's actually hearing it from somebody.

And that's where supervision and leaders are so important these days, because it's very easy to fire off a email, right?

And thinking you're getting your point across, but honestly they interpret a different way.

And that could be toxic, very toxic.

- Spencer, how do you handle that toxic situation?

- What sheriff said with the one-on-one meetings, that's so critical, right?

There's so much lost in context of email and text messages and all the other ways, Slack and chats and all the ways that we communicate today that actually spending that one-on-one time, face-to-face, even if it's over a Zoom call, right?

You can really connect with a person in a different way.

And when you spend that time with your team, with your employees, with your peers and you really connect with them, that's what's important.

- Before we run outta time, I wanna give both of you, what have I not given you the opportunity to share when it comes to problem solving?

What's the thing that keeps you up at night, Sheriff?

- There's a lot of things keep me up at night, but no, I mean, just doing the best I can and doing the right thing and then making sure my employees are doing the right thing.

We have such an important job.

People rely on us for a lot of different things.

They wear a lot of different hats.

So, if it's training, if it's leadership, whatever they need, I wanna be able to give to 'em in a logical manner.

So, some of the best advice I ever was told was, you know, make sure you're not demanding people's respect.

You have to earn it.

And sometimes that takes time and that's action over words.

- Thank you for your service.

Our community appreciates it so much.

Spencer, you get the last word.

What do you want everyone to know before we wrap up this conversation on problem solving?

- You know, one of the biggest challenges for me, what keeps me up at night on problem solving is convincing people that there is a problem that needs to be solved.

And aligning people behind solving a problem.

Because when you put a lot of brilliant minds all pulling in the same direction, it's very easy to get there.

But the storytelling and the vision casting required to get everybody pulling and truly that same direction, that is the biggest challenge to me.

- Such a great information.

I just love conversations about leadership and there's always something new that we can learn and I can't wait to apply the great advice our panelists shared about their problem solving techniques.

Well, that's all the time we have this evening.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Goodnight my friends.

(upbeat music)