I was trained from the beginning of my career to do this, and trained to teach the same thing to the people reporting to me. It makes us all think harder, empowers lower-level people to make an impact, etc. Recently, though, I had someone convince me that it's not necessarily the best organizational practice.
Essentially, there are sometimes big, systemic, intractable problems that lower-level people might see but not have the perspective, experience, etc. to even begin coming up with a solution. Higher-level people might have the perspective and experience but not see those problems (especially as each layer of the hierarchy acts a filter or sugar-coating mechanism for bad news as it moves upwards). If you tell people not to report problems unless they have a solution, and summarily dismiss anyone who does so, some serious problems might just be left rotting.
> What am I going to do if I agree with you?
A reasonable response to this might actually be, "I don't know; isn't that why you get paid the big bucks and I don't?"
Reporting problems with proposed solutions should be encouraged, but there shouldn't be a blanket statement of "Don't bring a me problem unless you have a proposed solution!" An executive can simply ask, "Do you have a proposal?" and if the answer is negative the executive can say, "I understand, interesting, thanks for reporting this. I'll keep it in mind / assign someone more senior on my staff to look into it / etc."
Essentially, there are sometimes big, systemic, intractable problems that lower-level people might see but not have the perspective, experience, etc. to even begin coming up with a solution. Higher-level people might have the perspective and experience but not see those problems (especially as each layer of the hierarchy acts a filter or sugar-coating mechanism for bad news as it moves upwards). If you tell people not to report problems unless they have a solution, and summarily dismiss anyone who does so, some serious problems might just be left rotting.
> What am I going to do if I agree with you?
A reasonable response to this might actually be, "I don't know; isn't that why you get paid the big bucks and I don't?"
Reporting problems with proposed solutions should be encouraged, but there shouldn't be a blanket statement of "Don't bring a me problem unless you have a proposed solution!" An executive can simply ask, "Do you have a proposal?" and if the answer is negative the executive can say, "I understand, interesting, thanks for reporting this. I'll keep it in mind / assign someone more senior on my staff to look into it / etc."