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This is probably the easiest root cause to address, but you should also tell the employee that he should have come to you with his problem sooner instead of trying to make it work without the proper resources.
As the manager, hopefully you can step in and help her tackle or find a way around the obstacle to get the job done. Skills Sometimes a performance problem is a simple lack of skills. Perhaps the employee was promoted before he was ready, or a new set of job duties has been assigned. Hopefully some extra training or mentoring can solve this performance problem. Remember that incompetence is not a fact, but an evaluation of a set of facts.
You might not have a complete understanding of the constraints the person is operating under. You might weigh his weaknesses more heavily than his strengths. You might have totally different assumptions about work, technology or the world -- ones that lead to very different conclusions. This question should spur caution and humility. What do you owe the organization? Given the risks, why do anything? Is it really your business? If the person is affecting your ability to get your job done, then yes.
And even if not, the person might be a waste of money at best, or others might suffer from his ineptitude. If the peer is a manager, his subordinates could be suffering but unable to do anything about it. In conjunction with seeding ideas, the more traditional approach to dealing with know-it-all leaders is the utilization of rational persuasion — using facts, logic and reason to convince someone to do something. In theory, rational persuasion is the only direct way to formally convince someone of an idea if that individual is in a superior position to your own.
That being said, while the presentation of factual evidence may create a compelling argument to the average person, its usefulness becomes significantly diminished when applied to particularly stubborn individuals.
Thus using one or both techniques in conjunction still requires a good deal of finesse and a great deal of practice on your behalf. The key is never let your frustration move from the professional realm into the personal; nobody ever said you have to be friends with your boss. Instead, focus on the bigger picture and actively try to build professional trust by executing on the things within your realm of control. Time is of the essence and with every minute that passes the chances of success plummet.
They flip and flop, paralyzed by uncertainty and fear. Organizations can recover from bad decisions, but the indecisive leader spells almost certain doom. While the above scenario likely causes flashbacks of immense frustration, the good news is that convincing your hopelessly indecisive boss to make a decision on a pressing issue is not as difficult as you may believe. The key is to spend more time defining the issue and less about persuading them to make the decision.
Much like in our previous scenario, the key is to break things down into the smallest common denominator. By taking the time to carefully analyze the issue, with any luck we can break what is an overwhelmingly large decision into a series of far more manageable smaller ones. Your ultimate goal is to force your boss into some sort of action, however small, so as to allow you to move the dial forward. Because management expertise is absolutely needed, especially for the higher-echelon jobs in government.
So, how to achieve this in practice? Consider how high level civil servants are selected. Take diplomats who in most liberal democracies, though not all must win a highly competitive set of exams at least professional U. Or better yet, take international civil servants. In short, for the higher levels of the civil service, you need to demonstrate well-defined abilities education, work experience.
The system could be built up in such a way that the level of expertise of political candidates is tailored to their level of responsibilities in the public sector. One could envisage two levels of entry points in a political career:. This two-stage vetting process would tie the two levels of government, creating a coherent political career path. And ensure that the pool of politicians is made of competent, prepared people — not the case now.
You have competent political leaders here and there, but they are lost in a sea of incompetent corrupt or corruptible politicians. Also, and this is important, the vetting process would help re-equilibrate the playing field between the public and private sectors. Yet that is exactly what politicians do. For the whole system to work, however, there is still one fundamental question that needs to be answered: What kind of education — exactly what expertise — and what type of work experience should a political candidate acquire to qualify?
The French have traditionally had an answer to that question: public administration studies. ENA graduates. After 70 years of operation, three presidents, seven prime ministers and many ministers have come out of ENA.
Has this given good results? In any case, ENA has been accused of producing elitists with the wrong kind of expertise. And that brings us back to the question.
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