I work with a person that went presented with a problem, works through it and arrives at the wrong solution. When I have them show me the steps they took, it seems like they interpret things incorrectly. This isn’t a language barrier, and it’s not like they aren’t reading what someone wrote.
For example, they are working on a product, and needed to wait until the intended recipients of the product were notified by an email that they were going to get it. the person that sent the email to the recipients then forwarded that notification email to this person and said “go ahead and send this to them.”
Most people would understand that they are being asked to send the product out. It’s a regular process for them.
So he resent the email. He also sent the product, but I’m having a hard time understanding why he thought he was supposed to re-send the email.
I’ve tried breaking tasks down into smaller steps, writing out the tasks, post-mortem discussion when something doesn’t go as planned. What other training or management tasks can I take? Or have I arrived at the “herding kittens” meme?
Do you mean “the customer”?
The way you communicate (at least in English) is needlessly convoluted.
You already know they interpret your instructions incorrectly. You admitted yourself that, that is the problem. The solution in my world would be to give better instructions.
Yeah, it’s vague on purpose. No, not customers.
Intended recipient of the product doesn’t have to mean customer. Could simply be sending something to a coworker or any number of options. The provided information seems completely understandable. It’s possible that what we are getting vs the person being told could be very different though.