Give Problems, Not Solutions

So Marty's saying: don't give your team solutions. Give them problems. Let them figure it out.

I tried this with my engineer. He's stuck on a bug. I'm like, "There's a problem. Solve it." He stares at me. "That's... literally your job," he says.

But okay, I get it. You hand people answers, they become robots. No thinking, no growth. It's like when your kid can't open a snack container—you grab it, boom, problem solved. Kid learns nothing. Next week? Same snack, same panic. He's basically raised you to be his snack-opening servant for life.

So now I'm the villain. "Container's stuck. What'll you try?" Kid's rage-eating dry cereal while glaring at me like I'm running a labor camp.

But here's the thing: give them the problem, let them struggle, let them experiment. That's where the magic happens. Rush in with answers? You rob them blind. They never become problem-solvers—they become problem-delegators who text you at midnight asking how to make pasta.

Give problems. Not solutions. Even if it kills you watching them suffer.