YOU be the manager!

[PepePeru]

our resident douche tries to do this. hoard knowledge.
he likens it to job security.
he really likes to think he's irreplaceable and no one else is capable of doing his job.

its a shame i'm not the boss here b/c he'd be out on his fat ass in about 5 secs.

his car broke down once and he couldn't come into work for a few days. my boss asked me how much of his job i can do. which i can about half, i can learn anything else he does with relative ease. too bad nothing ever came out of it, meaning his termination. he was told to document everything in case something like this happens again, which he never did.

so, i guess when fatass keels over from a heart attack at 48, we'll be screwed. since, he's obviously too brilliant to document anything he does or tell anyone else, b/c of his own insecurities about his job.

its frustrating.

 

[GeekDrew]

I'm surprised that none of you have worked under a 'dictator' of a boss that firmly believes that you're hoarding knowledge, not assisting fellow employees in any beneficial way, and is trying to stay the top dog on all of the projects just to make him/herself feel better (as Donna is being portrayed). I was the "Donna" at my last job. I was supposed to train my immediate supervisor, so that he would be able to do everything that I could do. He accused me over and over and over about not teaching him anything. Well, it's like this. If I need to "teach" someone something, then I need to have time to set up a training environment, and put together the proper teaching materials, manuals, etc. I wasn't given that time.

This particular prick of a boss was completely unable to learn anything at all by observing or asking questions. If he asked a question - any question related to my job (at that point) - I'd answer it as quickly and accurately as possible. If he would ask me questions pertaining to other aspects of the parent agency (infrastructure/facility related, usually), I refused to answer. I only had those bits of knowledge because I worked with the department responsible for those things in my free time, and it had absolutely *nothing* to do with my job, nor would the knowledge be beneficial to someone that would replace me - it could only be detrimental to the parent agency. Likewise with some of the equipment we used -- I couldn't answer some questions about the inner workings of the machinery because I was (and am) contractually forbidden from disclosing those details with any person or entity not under an appropriate NDA (I used to work for the vendor that made the machinery).

It was a mess. It got to the point where he would only ask me questions by emailing them to me, and he would CC the entire hierarchy of administrators above him, so I would only answer him by doing the same. Every answer I gave him was factual and answered the exact question that he asked. He had ample time to observe me, ask any questions that he'd come up with while observing me, etc., but either 1) he is completely unable to learn by observation (which is what I strongly believe), or 2) he thought I was sabotaging the department, so didn't trust my actions. It made both of us miserable. Eventually, I transferred to another division of the same parent agency, and when he was expected to do what I had been doing, he resigned... but not before doing away with (or hiding) most of the documentation that I had created, claiming that my procedures were incorrect for one reason or another.

So yeah, I've been Donna. The only way I know how to teach is to either answer questions, or let people watch me, or have them completely carry out the action, with me telling them what to do, just like a puppet. I'll do any of those, but apparently that's not enough. I wasn't hired to teach. My job description was (X) and to document (X). I did both of those, and I tried to teach, but it just didn't work.

</vent>

 

[sactoking]

From an asshole POV, Donna's "knowledge" is the intellectual property of the company. She has a legal obligation to disseminate it to any employee she's instructed to. Failure to do so is a terminable offense. Threatening to fire her will probably mess up her retirement plans.

 

[lxskllr]

I train people by having them do the job while I watch; If it takes longer to do, it takes longer; That's a training cost. That's the best way to learn, as being hands on sets it in your mind better than just being told. As long as my trainee isn't stupid, they can do almost everything I can do. They may not be as efficient, but they can do the job.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: sao123
did you consider the problem might be that donna just sux at being a teacher?

i know many a intelligent folks... but most of them couldnt be trusted to teach a 5 year old that 2+2=4.

Scotts general rule of thumb is:
The sum of a persons ability to communication ability and their knowledge of a subject is equal to 1.

Either a person knows nothing but will try to tell you everything about it, or they know everything about it but cant get past the word FIRST...

QFT/This

Teaching a Lifetime of Experience to some Noob may seem simple enough, but one would be wrong in assuming that. It is very possible that Donna has been doing it so long as to consider it second nature or it being a matter of reflex. Trying to then organize all that into Words is in itself a challenge, but there's also the tendency to merely express the final solution rather than the underlying steps/knowledge/reasoning behind it. It's like trying to teach Calculus to a child who has not been taught to count.

Donna gets frustrated, Mary's eyes glaze over. What you got here is, failure to communicate.

 

[LurkerSince2001]

What if you were to have Donna teach her stuff to 2 people - Mary plus another? This way

Donna would get the satisfaction of thinking that she is so valuable that it takes two to replace her;

Mary gets a cohort who can help figure things out if she gets stuck or doesn't understand;

you get a dept with no more single point of failure (what will happen when Mary gets ready to leave in a few years after Donna??)


And, if you make it part of the job of Mary and the second person to document EVERYTHING they do with Donna, they can collaborate on that and you might actually end up with some usable documentation.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: LurkerSince2001
What if you were to have Donna teach her stuff to 2 people - Mary plus another? This way

Donna would get the satisfaction of thinking that she is so valuable that it takes two to replace her;

Mary gets a cohort who can help figure things out if she gets stuck or doesn't understand;

you get a dept with no more single point of failure (what will happen when Mary gets ready to leave in a few years after Donna??)


And, if you make it part of the job of Mary and the second person to document EVERYTHING they do with Donna, they can collaborate on that and you might actually end up with some usable documentation.

That's an awesome idea, and I need a job. I'll train with Mary :^)

 

[clamum]

Originally posted by: LurkerSince2001
What if you were to have Donna teach her stuff to 2 people - Mary plus another? This way

Donna would get the satisfaction of thinking that she is so valuable that it takes two to replace her;

Mary gets a cohort who can help figure things out if she gets stuck or doesn't understand;

you get a dept with no more single point of failure (what will happen when Mary gets ready to leave in a few years after Donna??)


And, if you make it part of the job of Mary and the second person to document EVERYTHING they do with Donna, they can collaborate on that and you might actually end up with some usable documentation.

I think this is a dang good idea. And definitely second the documentation suggestion.

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: LurkerSince2001
What if you were to have Donna teach her stuff to 2 people - Mary plus another? This way

Donna would get the satisfaction of thinking that she is so valuable that it takes two to replace her;

Mary gets a cohort who can help figure things out if she gets stuck or doesn't understand;

you get a dept with no more single point of failure (what will happen when Mary gets ready to leave in a few years after Donna??)


And, if you make it part of the job of Mary and the second person to document EVERYTHING they do with Donna, they can collaborate on that and you might actually end up with some usable documentation.

Very good idea and I wish I could do that. Unfortunately, the project cannot afford to eat the cost of another person working on it for many months.

And there have been a couple comments about documentation. I should have pointed out that this type of work doesn't lend itself to being reduced to written descriptions of what to do. There are general procedures which are documented. The project has its own, unique set of procedures which are documented. There is a quality audit at the end which verifies a number of items were completed correctly. But the actual work is a blend of following the general rules, the specific project rules, and seeing what mood the customer is in and integrating those desires.

It takes a couple of months to do the work for one piece of a project and a project can have many pieces. If we tried to write down everything involved with doing the work, it would be thousands of pages and completely unusable. Each project is custom to an extent and that's where the experience comes in. In fact, sometimes we know NOT to follow the project's own rules because the customer doesn't really want it exactly the way they told us to do it!