I work with a person that went presented with a problem, works through it and arrives at the wrong solution. When I have them show me the steps they took, it seems like they interpret things incorrectly. This isn’t a language barrier, and it’s not like they aren’t reading what someone wrote.
For example, they are working on a product, and needed to wait until the intended recipients of the product were notified by an email that they were going to get it. the person that sent the email to the recipients then forwarded that notification email to this person and said “go ahead and send this to them.”
Most people would understand that they are being asked to send the product out. It’s a regular process for them.
So he resent the email. He also sent the product, but I’m having a hard time understanding why he thought he was supposed to re-send the email.
I’ve tried breaking tasks down into smaller steps, writing out the tasks, post-mortem discussion when something doesn’t go as planned. What other training or management tasks can I take? Or have I arrived at the “herding kittens” meme?
From the way this post is written, I think you don’t realize how vague your communication style is. Too many possible interpretations of what you said makes it hard to even follow the story you laid out.
Who emailed who about what?
How did someone resend an email that someone else sent?
Re-sending would mean the same coworker sent the email twice.
On rereading, I think you meant that one coworker sent an email to the client, then another coworker that you are having trouble with also sent the same email to the same client.
So, to answer your question, I think they arrive at a different conclusion because they see things differently. Anything that can be interpreted differently will be interpreted differently. The other co workers think they’re giving this person set values when in fact they’re handing them a set of variables and expecting only one result.
Have you considered events from their perspective? From what you’ve described, they were told to wait until a notification was sent, then they were given a notification with the instruction “send this”. If it was me my first thought would absolutely be that that’s the notification to be sent, the only reason I’d hesitate is because those sort of communications are well outside my job description.
The reason they sent the product afterwards is obvious; they were told to send them after the notification was sent, and they had sent the notification.
From what you’ve described, you are communicating incredibly poorly then blaming your workers for misunderstanding.
Is he maybe just a really literal person and took the forwarded email with instructions “send THIS to them” as “send this email to them”, but then he knows his work responsibility is to send the product, hence why he sent both the product and the email?
Do you have an SOP or exact steps to follow written down in a very clear, concise manner (yes, even something as simple as “after employee A sends the email, employee A will notify employee B to send out the product by forwarding the customer email to employee B”; I’m talking reaaaallly literal steps here)?
Can you give other examples of times he’s messed up in a similar way?
Does he have poor reading comprehension? ADHD?
I train employees a lot in my current job and jobs prior and I’ve learned that everyone interprets things differently and learns at their own pace. Most times you can adapt to their style, but sometimes people are just mentally out to lunch 24/7 and not fit for the job.
Another example:
The product they were sending is only relevant to remote workers.
The product group they were to send it to consists of remote workers and in-office workers.
They are aware that the product they are sending is only for remote workers.
This isn’t the first time they have had to send something to only remote workers.
They sent it to all of them instead of only the remote workers.
While I concede that the instruction could have been worded better, they should have either known to send the product to the appropriate people or asked questions.
Others have said in this post that I need to improve my comms skills, but this person regularly mis-interprets things from everyone, including documentation and guides, and then executes without hesitation. So how do we fix the individual?
It sounds like this person isn’t remembering the procedures then, even when you’ve explained it to them and they’ve already done the task before (Or they’re just a lazy fuck that doesn’t care one way or the other and maybe never will). There is no “fixing” the individual, you need to correct their behavior while also giving them plenty of opportunity to get it right and with all the tools and guides they need readily available. How long have they been working in that position? Maybe they just need more time.
As others have stated, if the directions aren’t already in writing, you should either write them down for the employee or, better yet, make the employee write them down, then review it for accuracy. This should in theory help them commit the process to memory, plus now they have their own guide to refer to.
Another bonus (for you, not the employee) of getting the process in writing is that if/when this person messes up again, now you have something to point back to and say “Remember when we went over this and you wrote it down and I verified that your notes were correct? Did you follow those notes this time? If yes, why did (mess up) happen anyway? If no, why didn’t you follow the notes?” Make this person explain themselves, don’t just sit there and be mad and say nothing to them.
This could also be a case of weaponized incompetence/ learned helplessness. If they fuck up a lot, you stop giving them work, but they’re still there getting paid anyway, right? Now you’re just paying them to either stand around or do menial tasks and not what you actually hired them for.
Start documenting their fuck ups, and tell them you’re doing so. You’re better off having a paper trail to point to when you have to fire them.
Most helpful, thanks.
In contrast with the rest of this thread, this post clearly gave you exactly the out you were looking for. You seem like an incompetent middle manager looking for an excuse to fire this person. I’m so glad I don’t have to work for sociopaths like you.
I’ll join the others here saying that it’s very unclear what you’re requesting, what your colleagues did, what they were supposed to do, and what actually happened.
It may serve you well to look inwards for a solution to your problem.
