Don't Solve Their Problems
Let your people struggle through problems so they build capability instead of depending on you.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 72%
Nick draws a direct line from parenting to management: shelter someone from every hard decision and you keep them from ever learning to make them. When an employee walks into your office with a problem and you say 'get out of my way, I'll solve it,' you do two harmful things — you deny them the chance to learn to solve problems themselves, and you train them to keep bringing you more and more problems until they can't function without you. The rule is to let people struggle through, stepping in only when the stakes are genuinely high (the equivalent of a kid about to knock his teeth out), while staying emotionally supportive. The goal is people who know how to 'struggle with grace,' not dependents.
Origin
Nick generalizes from how his parents raised him — letting him make small decisions and get hurt (skateboarding, unicycling, broken bones) while staying emotionally supportive — to how he manages employees.
Core principles
- 01Solving problems for people disables them.
- 02Coddling trains dependence and a flood of escalations.
- 03Let them struggle; intervene only when stakes are high.
- 04Stay emotionally supportive even while letting them fail.
- 05The goal is people who struggle with grace.
How to run it
- 1
Pause before rescuing
When someone brings you a problem, resist the reflex to grab it and solve it yourself.
- 2
Assess the stakes
Decide whether this is a genuine emergency (teeth about to be knocked out) or an ordinary fall they can recover from.
- 3
Hand it back
For ordinary problems, let them figure it out so they build the muscle to solve the next one without you.
Watch out Solving it for them trains them to escalate everything and never develop independence.
- 4
Stay supportive
Be emotionally supportive and encouraging even as you let them struggle, the way strong parents support a kid who falls.
- 5
Reserve intervention
Step in decisively only when the downside is real and irreversible.
In the wild
If his son is about to seriously hurt himself, Nick sprints to catch him; but if the boy hits a curb across the cul-de-sac, falls, and screams, Nick lets him figure it out rather than coddling him.
→ The child learns to handle setbacks instead of depending on rescue.
Nick applies the same rule at work: if an employee walks in with a problem and you just solve it, you stop them learning to solve problems and train them to bring you more and more.
→ Reports either build real problem-solving capability or become permanently dependent.
Common mistakes
Coddling your team
Removing every obstacle for your people keeps them from developing judgment and makes them unable to get things done without you.
Defaulting to 'this won't work'
Nick notes risk-averse people often had neurotic parents who led with why things can't work; leading with fear rather than 'we'll handle it' breeds insecurity.
Is it for you?
Best for
Managers and founders who keep getting pulled in to solve their team's problems.
Not ideal for
Genuine emergencies or safety-critical situations where you must step in.
From the transcript
“If an employee walks into your office and they have a problem and you just say 'get out of my way, I'll solve that problem,'…”
“My parents would make me make the little decisions when I was a kid so that I got better at making the decisions.”
From the episode
Nick Huber: How to Make Millions from Content Without Selling Ads
Nick Huber