Speaking from my own experience, as I slowly increase the number of years I’ve been working for, and the number of companies I’ve worked for … I can see myself becoming much more aware of the problems that occur in the workplace.
When I first got a job, I was often excited to go to work. Everything was fresh and new. I mostly didn’t notice any serious problems within processes, or office politics, being too naive to notice them. Or perhaps it was because a lot of people decided that due to my young age, I wouldn’t have understood most of their moans and groans about the job. So they told me very little.
But as time goes on, I’ve found that I can quickly analyse problems and come up with good solutions, but I’m rarely given the opportunity to do anything about those problems – due to not being in management. Even if I was, part of being a manager often means you manage a team. If you manage one team, can you influence other teams? They may still do their own thing even if other managers agree with your ideas.
What I struggle with is feeling like I have a lot of the answers but absolutely no way of getting those things in place. People might say “just get on and change things for the better”. If you do introduce changes, whether you’re doing them your own way or whether you’re going through the appropriate channels, getting people to use new processes or methodologies is a tough task unless things are reviewed and/or audited. Otherwise, how will you know that everyone is doing things the “right way”?
Example: An email goes round saying “hey guys, here’s a tip, we should all use it …” – A lot of people won’t even read the email. Some will, and then ignore it. A few people will follow the tip, but then maybe forget about it, or go back to their old ways, either out of choice or because the “new way” doesn’t work for them. It seems to me that only a very small number of people will actually read the email, try out the suggested idea, and either adopt it or get back to the sender with a reason why they think it might not work.
It’s not so much about whether or not you have time to read and write emails all day. I’m just not sure if it’s the best way to get ideas suggested, discussed, and implemented.
A meeting might be better – but it needs a tight agenda and a clear objective, or it’ll just be 1 hour plus of talking with no end in sight. Do you really need to invite everyone to that meeting? Do you email people first? Do you send a follow-up email to confirm the outcome? How do you enforce the process? How do you remind people that this is how they are supposed to do things now? How and where do you document the process?
I do have thoughts for many of these questions, but the problem is, a lot of things are outside of my control. I’d love to sort various things out, but it’s tough when the best you can do is put forward an idea, and hope for the best.
I’m starting to feel as though my only options are to assume responsibility for some things that don’t belong to anyone in particular, and start making decisions; or to just stop caring about this stuff, get over it, and lighten up. Is it so wrong to care? It certainly frustrates me a lot.
Has anyone else encountered this problem? How do you approach it?
About Ben
Hah, funnily enough, this is exactly what I’ve been working on for the better part of the last 2 years.
I’ve always been sort of the digital equivalent of a janitor, picking up tasks in my team to free up time for the rest. Thanks to that I was able to identify a lot of inefficiencies, and work to improve them.
Fast forward to today, and I find myself involved with management, working to implement the very same systems that solved problems for my team.
From what I’ve seen, if you encounter an inefficiency, just solve it for yourself. Inevitably, the people around you will notice, and if your solution really is the better one, will migrate to it.
The key isn’t forcing people to adopt a new way of working – it’s to show them how its done, and let them decide for themselves.
~ Wogan
I too feel that I am fairly uptight about things at work that no one else seems to care about. However, the reason I feel strongly about these things is that I believe if changed, these small things will make a huge difference.
But no one listens so I am looking for a new job.
I learnt after years of frustration that we only have 3 choices in life
1) if we don’t like something then do something about it
2) if we are not going do anything about it then forget it exists
and the one we don’t want to choose but unfortunately 95% of people do
3) we don’t like something but we don’t/won’t anything about it – guess who wears the burden? we do! stupid really isn’t it?
so just keep helping people and the rest will sort itself out and the frustration dissipates
allan
Thanks for that Allan, however I believe there is a lot more to it than doing something about it.
Adoption is a huge problem when half the battle is communicating the idea, let alone taking the time to justify it. I think this issue relates to the email / blog culture – “just say it” – with very little thought as to how that information will be accessed / organised in the future.
A good example is that a new starter won’t receive any of the emails that have been sent before they join a company, so we can’t rely on that as the only way to communicate stuff.
For me the biggest challenge is not the change itself, it’s finding how to communicate with others without bombarding them with emails or requiring them to sit in meetings.
I’ve yet to conquer this, but I’m working on it.