It’s not uncommon to find your staff telling you problems about this and that and then asking for solutions. Often times your staff presents you with problems that they themselves can answer.
Train you staff to bring you solutions. Whenever your staff presents you with a problem, follow-up with, “What do you think we should do about it?”.
My boss right now, trained us to bring solutions to him. Whenever we presented him with a problem, we followed it up with the options for solutions we can think of. The result? I learned not to go to him and solved my own problems. My bos had more time to work on more important things. He had more time now because he did not let our problems occupy his time.
Why does this work?
It works because they are forced to solve our own problems. It will dawn upon the employee that he never got any solution from his boss. Instead he thought of the solution to his own problem.
Staff are encouraged to think for themselves instead of letting their boss think of solutions to their problems. Staff would try to think more, explore more and experiment more.
They see solved problems as personal achievements. The next time they are up against a problem, they will be very much interested in solving it themselves.
So as you can see, training your staff to bring you solutions will make them grow. As you train them, they will realize that they need you less and less to solve their problems. This will give you more time to focus on important tasks of your own.