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Opening Note: In 2024, while I was working at SS&C, the CEO of a local California public agency learned that two of his personal brokerage accounts worth over a million dollars combined would take more work to transfer to our retirement platform than he had expected. His response was immediate. He threatened to write a complaint letter to the IRS about our dropping the ball with his assets.
The financial advisor who supported him then carried the complaint to my PMO, and the project blew up in terms of unwanted visibility. My PMO managers were freaking out emotionally as a result and immediately became worried about our key relationship with our outside sales team from our most important client that brought us this retirement plan business based on a highly desired advisor. One, because of complex dependencies related to this particular project, our timeline had been delayed about a month. Secondly, because we were getting push back from a national partner firm that was to hold the brokerage assets. Their interface for the participants with brokerage assets allowed exchanges with their regular retirement positions.
By the time that complaint reached us, it was no longer a question about processing the asset transfers successfully. It had become a potential long term relationship hit, a regulatory threat, and a project in crisis. Problems that arrive that late in the project phase can potentially be costly, mainly in relationships with key stakeholders and perception of competence as a partner PMO. I have wondered since how many of those costs begin much earlier, in the moments when the project team is dealing with the unique complexity of a particular project being implemented. In this case, we were dealing with potentially messy brokerage accounts that were not normally part of our projects based on this size of the retirement plan and amount of aggregated assets.
I worked through it calmly with my cross functional project team and our external stakeholders, which included this reputable brokerage provider and the financial advisor that brought the business to our client, an international investment management company. I took a strategic approach to double down on providing high touch and frequent customer service directly with the CEO participant. This was accomplished effectively by calling him directly on a daily basis with updates and to lend associated support. On the back end, I organized a few custom meetings with senior decision makers at the brokerage provider to find workable solutions to the dependencies and related document requirements to get them resolved as quickly as feasible. In the end, this CEO plan participant expressed gratitude that his assets transferred successfully without incident and the project concluded once we introduced the permanent account support for all plan participants.
Many of us have said “bring me solutions, not problems” and meant it well. This issue asks what that sentence teaches the people who hear it, and what we might say in its place.
What to say instead
The sentence comes from a good place. We want ownership and initiative, and we do not want a team that hands us every difficulty without having thought about it. Yet consider what a project team member hears. If I must have a solution before I speak, then I should hold my concern until I feel certain. Certainty usually arrives late, when the problem is larger, the options are fewer, and the fix costs more including potential hits to a client relationship or even the PMO that we work for.
Here is the alternative I now use: “Bring me what you see, as early as you see it. We will work out the solution together.” Notice what changes. The problem arrives sooner, the thinking becomes shared, and the person learns that raising a concern is part of the job rather than a risk to their standing.
Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School has studied this under the name psychological safety. In The Fearless Organization, she describes teams in which people feel safe to raise concerns and admit mistakes, and she shows that those teams tend to learn faster and perform better. Do we want our best information to depend on how comfortable people feel speaking up? I would argue that for most of us the answer is a resounding no. In my story above, I obviously had a fairly complex situation with outside stakeholders, but it would have helped to ask open ended questions earlier in the project with these statekholders in order to better adjust expectations based on necessary adjustments to a normal timeline and additional solutions that would be needed to handle unique custom brokerage accounts tied to a retirement plan.
Three moves that make it real
The first move is to thank before you evaluate. When someone brings you difficult news, the first 60 seconds set the pattern for every conversation that follows. A sincere thank you tells the person that bringing the news was the right decision, even when the news is unwelcome. This is relationship management, one of the four emotional intelligence skills described by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, applied in a single moment.
The second move is to ask about options only after you have thanked. “What have you considered so far?” is a good question when it follows appreciation. It becomes a respectful request for a solution when it comes first, and then we have rebuilt the original sentence in a gentler tone.
The third move is never to punish the messenger in public. In my case, I had to deal with PMO managers that did not adhere to this rule when it came to protecting me after they got word about the potential IRS letter. Teams watch how we respond to the first person who brings us a problem, and they decide from that response whether to bring us the next one. If I think about the advisor and the CEO in my own story, I am reminded how much of a project’s health depends on whether concerns can travel quickly to the people who can act on them.
Accountability stays in place
Some of us worry that this lowers the bar. It does not. We still expect people to think carefully, and we still hold ourselves and others accountable for results. What changes is the timing. Accountability that begins when a problem is small is far cheaper than accountability that begins when a problem has become a crisis. As Stephen M.R. Covey writes in The Speed of Trust, trust changes how quickly a team can move and how much the work costs. A team that tells us the truth early is a team that moves faster.
Voice from the Field: Robert Greenleaf, who gave us the language of servant leadership, wrote in The Servant as Leader: “Only a true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first.”
Listening first is the heart of this issue. When a project team member brings us a problem, the servant leader’s first response is to actively listen, and the solution comes afterward. The CEO in my opening story was, in his own way, asking to be heard before he expected to be helped.
Your Next Deliberate Step
Here are two actions you can take over the next two weeks to build a team that tells you the truth early.
1. Change one sentence. In your next three team conversations, replace “bring me solutions, not problems” with “bring me what you see, as early as you see it.” Keep a short tally of how many early concerns reach you compared with a typical two weeks. Many of us find the difference noticeable within the first few days.
2. Run a first-ten-seconds check. The next time someone brings you difficult news, respond first with a thank you and one clarifying question. Afterward, write down how the person’s tone and level of detail change in your next conversation. That small record will show you whether your team has learned that it is safe to speak.
A Closing word
Over the long term, the project leaders who hear about problems early are the project and program managers who solve them cheaply, and the teams that trust them grow into future leaders themselves. A project that survives a crisis with its relationships intact is a project that taught everyone involved something about listening. You can do this!
If you would like to practice these skills alongside other project or program managers, I invite you to consider our On Becoming A Leader Founders Cohort, which begins on January 11, 2027. Founding seats are limited so every member receives real attention in our live sessions. Pricing is discounted 50%. You are welcome to join the waiting list on Kajabi
I would also like to hear from you. Reply to this email and tell me about a time early bad news saved a project. With your permission, I may share a few anonymously in a future issue.
Serve well, lead well, and grow the leaders around you.
Mark