In a recent post, blogger Seth Godin throws out an interesting statistic: If you ask 100 people to do something, expect two of them to get it wrong.
Make it OK to not know something — allow your employees to get their work done with minimal downtime and frustration.
According to Godin, managers have two choices in dealing with this errant 2 percent:
“Design systems that have the good sense and gracefulness to permit the 2% to proceed; or annoy, demonize or lose these people.”
Unfortunately, most companies today opt for the latter. In a recession, quality desktop application support usually is the first to go when budgets are cut. It’s hard to quantify its return on investment, and the demand for such support is often hidden.
Companies annoy, demonize or lose employees by making them figure out software problems on their own, but hold them accountable if their workarounds fail. Figuring it out on their own can mean fruitlessly scouring Microsoft help files for solutions, asking for assistance from colleagues who know a little more about software, finding flawed workarounds, or doing nothing at all. That’s the hidden demand, and it wastes heaps of time and money. It also creates frustrated employees.
A smarter solution is to acknowledge that the 2 percent is inevitable and take steps to minimize the effect. Offer software support and training; make it OK to not know something; allow your employees to get their work done with minimal downtime and frustration.
Read Godin’s blog here.
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