Is intuition dead?

v638sg7k1a92bx

A sweeping general statement but does anyone else find that when dealing with staff that they have to give such specific instructions that it would be easier to do the task yourself only that you don't want to create a precedent where staff will develop a habit of asking you because they know it's easier than trying think for themselves?

I've been working and in business a long time, and I know we always say "assume nothing and confirm everything" but I find in recent years that it is painstaking dealing with people to get them to do some of the most basic office and admin tasks to the extent that every step in the process has to be documented. I'm referring to most basic of tasks i.e. if you get an email with an attachment, save it in the appropriate folder so we all have access to it. "Nobody told me to do that"

Another example:
Q: "I got this email, I don't know what to do with it"
A: "Read the email, the instructions are in the attachment"

It seems people want the answer to jump out at the screen at them or as if the computer is going to do the work for them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

storker

Something tells me it isn't...

neris

dont employ office staff but with alot of our staff yes some of them nearly want you to do the job for them or tell them every little thing and dont seem to see outside the box. There is a mentality with younger people we,re finding that theyre either like rabbits in a headlight when some thing needs to be done or they cant see outside their own little space

v638sg7k1a92bx

neris wrote: »

There is a mentality with younger people we,re finding that theyre either like rabbits in a headlight when some thing needs to be done or they cant see outside their own little space

I call them generation gazelle. Ever see a gazelle when it's been disturbed and it looks up all surprised with dopey expression on it's face.

Possibly...........Or maybe there's another reason......


a) you're not paying enough to attract anyone with a decent level of critical thinking to able to operate on the fly (or to care enough)
b) you're a nitpicking perfectionist who wants everything done your way or
c) you're a micro-managing maniac who hits the roof if something is done incorrectly


I've worked for/in all three of these types of businesses. Asking "What would you like me to do with this" provides the easiest defence to use when the sh1t hits the fan and you're being lambasted for your actions.


Seriously. If one of your staff is like this then maybe they need a bit of a talking to. If all of them are like this, maybe you should be talking to the person looking back at you in the mirror.

v638sg7k1a92bx

Deleted User wrote: »

Possibly...........Or maybe there's another reason......


a) you're not paying enough to attract anyone with a decent level of critical thinking to able to operate on the fly (or to care enough)
b) you're a nitpicking perfectionist who wants everything done your way or
c) you're a micro-managing maniac who hits the roof if something is done incorrectly


I've worked for/in all three of these types of businesses. Asking "What would you like me to do with this" provides the easiest defence to use when the sh1t hits the fan and you're being lambasted for your actions.

Seriously. If one of your staff is like this then maybe they need a bit of a talking to. If all of them are like this, maybe you should be talking to the person looking back at you in the mirror.

Ah the old "I don't like to be micro managed" excuse.

Or, maybe it's you. You seem to have had alot of bad bosses, sounds like you're the common denominator.

LOL......I have had a lot of bad bosses, but I've had a load of great ones too. You're the one on the internet making a self-confessed general sweeping statement about the youth of today.


Remember, if you meet one a$$hole in the morning they're probably an a$$hole.....but if you meet them all day, maybe it's you that's the a$$hole.

mikemac2

Every generation thinks the one following them are wasters

I'm sure there is graffiti on a wall in Pompeii from a shopkeeper moaning about his staff

NSAman

Justin Beautiful Pocketful wrote: »

A sweeping general statement but does anyone else find that when dealing with staff that they have to give such specific instructions that it would be easier to do the task yourself only that you don't want to create a precedent where staff will develop a habit of asking you because they know it's easier than trying think for themselves?

I've been working and in business a long time, and I know we always say "assume nothing and confirm everything" but I find in recent years that it is painstaking dealing with people to get them to do some of the most basic office and admin tasks to the extent that every step in the process has to be documented. I'm referring to most basic of tasks i.e. if you get an email with an attachment, save it in the appropriate folder so we all have access to it. "Nobody told me to do that"

Another example:
Q: "I got this email, I don't know what to do with it"
A: "Read the email, the instructions are in the attachment"

It seems people want the answer to jump out at the screen at them or as if the computer is going to do the work for them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

IN A WORD ..... YES!!!!

If you think it is bad there, try working here in the US.

If you find someone with intuition PAY THEM A FORTUNE AND KEEP THEM.

When I started working with the current place I work (a good few years ago) there were 30 people in this office. Currently, there are 10. The other 20 were surplus to need and could do nothing. The 20 were sacked after I did the assessments of what they actually did. 10 people currently do the work of 30 and it shows just how some people think they are important when they actually do nothing.

The people I work with now, they are those that "know" how things should operate. They "know" what needs to be done and just get on with it. They are good communicators and able to work with clients as part of a team and also field questions to others when they don't have answers.

I was personally seen as an upstart and a troublemaker, when in actual fact I was employed to assess what role everyone plays. I was employed to find solutions to make things easier and more streamlined in our business. Some people (mostly those who talked but did little) had a major issue with my appointment.

One lady, who literally was with this company for years (and I still have no idea what she actually did) stated that she was indispensable.

It is not a case that people have common sense. Yes you have to tell people about their jobs and show them how things are done in any business setting, but you also need people who can work on their own initiative to get things done. I do not know everything, I am open to anyone who has new ideas to get the job done. Eg.. an intern for the Summer last year had an idea to take a work process home to speed up the processing of same. She literally saved us thousands of man hours by looking at the problem and solving it. Obviously, she will have a well paid job when she finishes college if she wants it and work here when ever she wants.

People who can work on their own initiative are worth their weight in gold... never let them go if at all possible.

v638sg7k1a92bx

NSAman wrote: »

IN A WORD ..... YES!!!!

If you think it is bad there, try working here in the US.

If you find someone with intuition PAY THEM A FORTUNE AND KEEP THEM.

When I started working with the current place I work (a good few years ago) there were 30 people in this office. Currently, there are 10. The other 20 were surplus to need and could do nothing. The 20 were sacked after I did the assessments of what they actually did. 10 people currently do the work of 30 and it shows just how some people think they are important when they actually do nothing.

The people I work with now, they are those that "know" how things should operate. They "know" what needs to be done and just get on with it. They are good communicators and able to work with clients as part of a team and also field questions to others when they don't have answers.

I was personally seen as an upstart and a troublemaker, when in actual fact I was employed to assess what role everyone plays. I was employed to find solutions to make things easier and more streamlined in our business. Some people (mostly those who talked but did little) had a major issue with my appointment.

One lady, who literally was with this company for years (and I still have no idea what she actually did) stated that she was indispensable.

It is not a case that people have common sense. Yes you have to tell people about their jobs and show them how things are done in any business setting, but you also need people who can work on their own initiative to get things done. I do not know everything, I am open to anyone who has new ideas to get the job done. Eg.. an intern for the Summer last year had an idea to take a work process home to speed up the processing of same. She literally saved us thousands of man hours by looking at the problem and solving it. Obviously, she will have a well paid job when she finishes college if she wants it and work here when ever she wants.

People who can work on their own initiative are worth their weight in gold... never let them go if at all possible.

Really, I always found people in the US were more conscientious about their work than in Ireland. But you're correct, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

The difficulty is finding those people in the first place and while managing existing work.

NSAman

Justin Beautiful Pocketful wrote: »

Really, I always found people in the US were more conscientious about their work than in Ireland. But you're correct, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

The difficulty is finding those people in the first place and while managing existing work.

Unfortunately, I work in a developmental role to make sure all work is done on time and correctly. I work across various companies and the information flow is enormous. When I find someone (which in the current climate is nearly impossible) who has smarts/initiative/work ethic/personality, I keep them. They become part of the family atmosphere in this office.

Internationally, in our various offices I don't find that lack of initiative as much. Perhaps people are in need of the job more than here in the States at present. We do pay people well for their work and we have a very close working relationship with all personnel internationally. People travel a lot with our various businesses and they always have a home to stay in when they travel rather than a hotel room. We look after out people!

Most Americans are very conscientious when it comes to their work, however, in this company the Boss at the time didn't seem to care as much as I do about team building and people enjoying their work atmosphere and achievements. He was trusting (too trusting in my opinion) and put trust in the wrong people. He understands that hard decisions had to be made, it didn't make him popular amongst those whose services were no longer needed though.

Our businesses are going from strength to strength each year now. We have a wonderful family of people working not just here but in a few countries across the globe. (Yes I do call them family as I know each one of them and make sure that they all know if they have an issue they can call/email or talk to me personally when I am in their country)

desirejadeh

Intuition isn’t dead. It’s just that employees are hyper aware of managers wanting things done in a specific way and this varies so much from boss to boss that people become tentative about doing anything without clearly laid out instructions.

I work on a team of about 30 worldwide, we all have the same official level(excluding managers), but you quickly identify the seniors versus the juniors.

It's not just young people, its the way society is getting. Thinking outside the box is being outlawed.

I do believe some of the blame lies in the hands of business processes. The OP's example of the employee not saving an attachment in a shared folder so everyone could see it, because the employee wasn't told. That would never occur to me. Instead, I would assume that if other people need to see an attachment sent to me, that there is a distribution list, so everyone gets the email and attachment. I've got nearly 20 years experience (Jesus!) working in offices and never saved attachments to a shared folder.

Yes, common sense is fading. There was a situation earlier this week which I can't go into details about, but the guy followed the process to the letter and emailed the head of Security Engineering asking if his employee was authorised to use scripts on his virtual machine. :rolleyes:

It's not young people. It's everyone. Software designers are also at fault. So many applications I use daily are thoroughly unintuitive. So you need a how-to or a walkthrough to use them, so when 90% of your job is documented, yes, you have to tell people to think outside the box for the other 10%.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Justin Beautiful Pocketful wrote: »

Another example:
Q: "I got this email, I don't know what to do with it"
A: "Read the email, the instructions are in the attachment"

It seems people want the answer to jump out at the screen at them or as if the computer is going to do the work for them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

Don't take this the wrong way, but it might be a sign that you have been micro managing in the past or the employees feel like they can't make a mistake so wont risk initiative. IE Staff have gotten to a level where they are so used to being a cog in a wheel that they have stopped trying and know if they push back you will do their job for them.


If your team are under preforming you need to take ownership of that behaviour, show them how to do the job with leadership and set clear expectations. But if they aren't capable of doing the job and you've tried absolutely everything, then do them a favour and let them go - they will be miserable in a job they can't do and you are holding them back from a job they can do and will love doing.


Example:


Employee: "I got this email, I don't know what to do with it"
Boss: "Was there a specific part of the instructions in the attachment that you struggled to comprehend? If so set out your two or three potential ways of dealing with it and bring it to our weekly one to one meeting to go through with it, or if you think it's urgent my next available meeting slot is..."


Then at the meeting, start with "tell me what your struggling with and lets start with the avenue you think is most likely to be the best solution." Talk through the pro's and con's of each approach - but don't make the decision for them. Yes this takes a longer time, but you are investing in your staff. And if you see repeat bad behaviours, call them out on it immediately.



I'd suggest two resources: Read The Dichotomy of Leadership By Jocko Willink (also available on Audible) and Manager Tools Basics Podcast series on how to run one 2 one meetings.



Also



"If you get an email with an attachment, save it in the appropriate folder so we all have access to it. "Nobody told me to do that".



Consider more modern tools than email for this purpose (Teamwork.com / Slack) and when you change or assign procedures, have reference documents and procedures documents that you can point to. For example, my companies have a policy of make sure all Documents relating to a project are available to the team, incase you fall ill or get hit by a bus. This is brief but covers a lot of situations including remote workers to get access. If a document is missing when someone needs it, it gets brought up at the weekly meeting. If its causes a project delay or an improvement area it goes up on the white board as a reason for a project delay until the project is back on track.



If an employee continues to fail to improve or continuously makes the same mistakes, they would know that our procedures then mean their direct boss MUST given them verbal, followed by written warnings and eventual dismissal. It almost never gets this far, but because the employees know the procedures and we set them up to win - they understand when they get the warnings.



Also by making it more difficult to say they don't know what to do - IE they need to think harder about the many solution options rather than acting on one. They take the path of least resistance. At the very least if they come to you with a problem, they ask is this the solution which i think is the right one what you want me to do.

Ultimate Seduction

You can tell from the first few sentences that the problem is mostly likely you! These dopey looking gazelles just aren't as perfect as you.

neris

neris wrote: »

dont employ office staff but with alot of our staff yes some of them nearly want you to do the job for them or tell them every little thing and dont seem to see outside the box. There is a mentality with younger people we,re finding that theyre either like rabbits in a headlight when some thing needs to be done or they cant see outside their own little space

Just a general observation, not aimed at you personally, and probably astoundingly obvious to most people.

There tends to be a direct relationship between a good-quality workforce and a quality working environment which offers competitive conditions.

No, intuition isn't dead. But my intuitive observation is that realistic expectations, especially in SMEs, are often in mortal danger. And that applies as much to employers as to employees.

beauf

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

...is that realistic expectations, especially in SMEs, are often in mortal danger. ...

What does that mean?

beauf

Justin Beautiful Pocketful wrote: »

A sweeping general statement but does anyone else find that when dealing with staff that they have to give such specific instructions that it would be easier to do the task yourself only that you don't want to create a precedent where staff will develop a habit of asking you because they know it's easier than trying think for themselves?...

Don't work with a lot of untrained office staff personally.

But I do see people who do this using it as a tactic of getting other people to do their job.

You do meet even highly educated people, (lots of qualifications, certifications) who seem unable to think laterally. But thats a different issue.

beauf

beauf wrote: »

What does that mean?

it means that, as a general rule, the smaller the business the less realistic the expectations of the business owner, vis a vis the quality of staff they can attract.

beauf

Ah I see what you meant now.

Everything I go to write a sweeping generalisation about quality of employee or employer, I realise its not true.

In my experience it comes down to the specific personalities your dealing with regardless of situation. High paid, low paid, small company or big, you get all sorts of people in them all. I've never found it to be consistent.

porsche boy

In my experience of employers over the last 2 decades I can say that it's far harder to please or impress boss's. You can't read their mind so I have found using initiative can either require the work to be completely redone or being quizzed by your boss as to why you thought it was right to do such & such leaving you feeling deflated and worthless.