Walk the Dog
Effective Communication
Teamwork requires effective communication.
A manager might give you a task by saying “Walk the dog”. This sounds absurdly simple doesn’t it?
However such a simple task relies on a lot of assumptions. Thus someone who has never walked a dog before might have a myriad of questions:
Which dog? Is it the neighbor to the left’s dog? Or the neighbor to the right’s dog? Or perhaps the neighbor across the street’s dog? Or perhaps your household has a half dozen dogs, maybe it’s one of your own dogs?
How far should you walk the dog?
Do you need plastic bags and a scoop to pick up the dog’s droppings?
Is the dog perfectly trained or do you need a leash?
Where is the leash? Which leash? The red one? Or the black one?
Okay, without droning on and on, I assume you get the picture.
Don’t expect others to read your mind. At this point you might think, “Damn, it would be easier to just walk the dog myself!” Of course it would be! But what about tomorrow? Next week? Maybe it’s worth taking some time to break the job down into tasks, document them, and teach them. If you do that, soon you’ll have a trained dog walker that can be helpful in the future.
This applies for spouses, children, friends, co-workers, or anyone else that you are trying to collaborate with in the world.
I have actually had managers tell me to do a task and when I didn't do it they WAY they wanted it they gave me all sorts of grief. I had to tell them that if they wanted it done a specific way they needed to TELL ME that.
You can not assume someone is going to do a task the exact same way that you would. If you want it done a particular way SAY SO. Give instruction on HOW you want it done!
Bad management will drive off good employees. This very issue has pushed me out the door of at least 2 jobs that I can think of in my employment history. It is one of those things I swore NOT to do once I got into management. I was NOT going to be THAT kind of manager.