Flashback with me to earlier this month in Michigan.

My team and I went out of our way to create problems.

In fact, my partners and I created a — not behind a closed door — but a public forum for 140+ leaders to come together to scoff and serve up their companies largest problems that they fully acknowledged they were creating, each getting in the way of manifesting meaningful solutions.

Have you ever encountered a problem on the way to the problem you really wanted to solve? Have you ever been worried to allow your team to vent about all the problems that keep them up at night?

Welcome to the club.

We’ve all been there.

I commend our brave partner, CHRO Nicole Zube, for allowing her team to go there. She agreed that when you have a core behavior of We Create Solutions, you have to first have the courage to unearth those hard conversations that have yet to be addressed.

So we kicked off our 72 hours with SpartanNash by putting up over 470+ post-it notes on the walls that each listed out a big, medium or bite-sized problem the team or organization needed to cope with. Each team then “podiumized” what they felt was their gold, silver and bronze medal hero problem that needs to be conquered in the very near future.

Then, each team presented back their podium problems to the rest of the team.

The very next day, the team transformed themselves from fear fighters into problem slayers. Were we going to solve all the problems in the room? Of course not. Were we nudging the teams on a path to have a better understanding of what they needed to attack to win together? Absolutely.

Now you get to be a fear fighter…

Got time? Grab your post-it notes, a few good teammates and find a wall.

Short on time? Jot down then prioritize the three largest problems you need to address.

What landed on your podium?

Have you made those problems public?

Are you setting up forums to have not just next steps — but now steps — conversations?

When you do — once you get through the hard — you might find your team more aligned, inspired and together.