To think direct reports should think for themselves?

[PinataHeeHaw]

I manage a few people. One is great and lovely but he asks questions he obviously hasn't thought long and hard about solving himself. It's every single shift I have questions, sometimes a few, and one time I had ten emails in the space of a few hours. Some are relevant questions and I'm glad he asked but a recent one he could've gone to another colleague concerned with the subject of the question.

I'm tired. Aibu?

No you’re not. However there is clearly an issue, be it confidence or capability. So you’re going to have to do some coaching, as is part of your role, rather than simply getting annoyed with your direct report.

This.

Who employed him to start with anyway?

if the questions aren’t stopping them from working, maybe they could be taken away as part of an informal training session so that they build up their notes / own library. Then if they ask the same thing again (or something very similar, they can use their notes. If they keep asking the same thing over and over, you’ll either need to change how you train/respond or add to their performance plan.

I get it. But as their manager what are you doing the manage this? That’s part of your job.

If he is asking questions and you are answering them, how would he know you expect something different? You are glad he asked some questions. Not others. Have you explained what the difference is?

A lot of the time the reason people do this is because they think they should ask and their manager wants them to run these things by them first. Sometimes it’s a lack of confidence. Sometimes it’s through fear.

How you deal with it will depend on the reason.

I also have someone like this, I didn’t recruit her. She’s good at things when you do the thinking for her, but can’t do the thinking. I’d hoped with a lot of coaching and experience of delivering the work that I planned that she would get better, but I’m starting to conclude that her brain just doesn’t work in this way.

could depend on how they were managed in the past. If they had an awful micromanager before, they might not have been allowed to just get on and do things. It can be hard to adapt at times

I think it's definitely a lack of confidence which I'm starting to slowly build up.

It's just so frustrating to be on the receiving end of a phone call as soon as I log on at 9am and then 47 thousand emails after that.

Things we have done is a Teams Channel for queries not emails to manager constantly so they have to post and anyone in team can answer. Has a search facility so it helps everyone. Hopefully cuts down on the I cba to look it up questions as it’s visible to everyone.
Encourage at 1-1s to ask colleagues, to go on training, to use teams.
Manager drop in availability in office once week to ask but again it’s visible to team.
Not responding quickly if it’s not urgent.

Is he quite new? Maybe used to a micromanager before and worried about making mistakes. I’d look at a way to manage it better for your time and his for example arrange to have a catch up teams call for maybe 15 mins a day and say I’m free at this time call me and anything we need to discuss we can go over it then. If it’s urgent I can of course make myself available but if you take note of things and we can talk it through together. Spend time re inforcing the training and he will realise he does know the answer and over time the questions will reduce.

You can manage it though. So maybe do a weekly catch up at first. Bring anything to meeting he thinks is for you. Go through - 1. Speak to x she’s good at this, 2. Put query on teams as it will be useful learning for team and I’ll reply in channel there, 3. I don’t know. You research it and let me know your plan by next week etc

You need to do 2 things imo:

1. weekly 1:1 focused on positive review of what worked well, what could have been done better and want needs to be eliminated. Stop/Start/Continue. Focus and what's working better than previous week etc. Do you have a skills set/job areas matrix that can be uses to demonstrate positive progression? Like the job includes takes 1-6. You can do do 1& 2 perfectly, starting to learn skill 3 etc.

2. I won't help people who don't help themselves. Use reasonable pushback - what have you done with this task so far? Have you looked at manual/previous recent similar task etc, checking with such and such etc? What would you do if I was on leave for a week etc?

I do really like the 15 minutes at the end of each day, however, I also don't want to seem uncaring or unavailable.

Most of the questions he asks are relevant, it's just some I think are ones he could easily find the solution himself.

I love that idea. I've had bad bosses in the past and don't want to come across as cold and uncaring and that I don't help. Yesterday's question just really pissed me off. He knew he could've directly discussed this with the other colleague who it wad concerning. No need to involve me at all.

I have had this before and it is exhausting. I made effort to ensure all training materials were up to date and would start referring people back to the material, obvious with confidence I knew the answer would be in there.

It was a new team that had previously had a micro manager and would be quite nasty if any mistakes were made. I really had make the effort to foster turn the culture round from a blame one.

Also maybe give him back up support.

He can't think for himself when he doesn't have a clear guide as to where he can go to ask questions and which questions etc.

With new starts, I usually breakdown as:

• introduce him to the previous newest member of the team (tell him he csn refer questions re basic items - IT, how to use a certain system etc).
• More experienced team members (usually the people who cover for me in my absence)
• Me (weekly catch up, or 20 mins every morning first week, M/W/F second week and then T&T as long as needed). For other times, request he puts an appointment in your diary with an outline of what he needs help with with - you can move it to a tome thst suits you better depending on urgency

Most people get there. The new environment/skills set is a challenge for anyone. If there's confidence issues on top of that you need to start eliminating them quickly. First 6 months usually difficult with any job move.

I've got this at the moment, 3 junior members of staff who have no initiative whatsoever, no ability to think things through or try to sort something out before they come to me.

It's exhausting.

I have no problem with people not quite being up to speed due to inexperience, what is frustrating is people who do not even fucking try to think something through before they come running for help. My time is, unfortunately, limited enough to have to carry complete dead weight and so 1 of them at least is going to be let go.

Are you not redirecting him ?

Eg. Who have you asked so far ? Or redirecting back to guidance/training documents ?

Could you start him off with a requirement to do at least one thing to try to find the answer before he brings a question to you. So questions should move from 'how do I do x' to "I am trying to do x and I have consulted the online guidance/asked y. It looks like I need to use system z, is that right?" Over time that can build up to trying more things so you reach a point of only being asked things that there is genuinely need for you to advise on.

Using a coaching style when asked questions can also help, so you ask questions to help him find the answer rather than giving the answer. This is often more time consuming than giving the answer but should pay off over time.

Finally a buddy can help with basic questions.

Your company needs to look at it's recruitment procedure if they've employed 3 useless staff members. One could slip through the net sure, but 3? How well trained and qualified are your recruitment team?

Oh, I don't disagree at all. We should never have employed these people in the first place.