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This one feels like the article actually addresses it perfectly. I have had an issue with this literal problem. I had a 'consultant' we would farm out to other

This one feels like the article actually addresses it perfectly. I have had an issue with this literal problem. I had a 'consultant' we would farm out to other organizations. She was phenomenal with work quality, but her organization was garbage, and her billing was always late/inaccurate. Here's what I did (and what the article seems to agree with): 1. Be clear about your expectations. Have standardized forms, and clear deadlines the two of you discuss. Also discuss and agree to consequences for not meeting expectations for timeline and accuracy. You WILL have to explain why this is important; to most of these folks who are rockstars, the work is important, not the follow-up. 2. Work through the documentation process, and find the pinch points. How can you help with that (provide resources). 3. If you have set consequences, follow through on them, or change the process to suit the person if they are valuable enough. In my experience, being bad at ancillary things isn't malicious. It's either not a priority, or it has never been called out. Super high performers won't understand why it matters (especially in the tech sector where 'the work' is all that matters). It's up to you to translate why it's important, and what the impact is for the team. Be open to solutions you hadn't though of. Good luck.

jasonpeacock 6y ago
This is so true for many things in life, including relationships and parenting :)
- gnat 6y ago
  I found that the things that worked for me as a parent also worked for me as a manager: treat them as adults, ask questions rather than assume/provide answers, include them in finding solutions to problem rather than dictate, and so on.
enraged_camel 6y ago
He understands why it matters because he used to run his own one-man show before we "acqui-hired" him. But whenever I notice that he doesn't have his time logged in the system, he says "yeah I've been slammed all day" or something similar and promises to get it done soon... and then doesn't. And he genuinely is getting a lot of work done so there's no foul play or anything. The issue isn't just logging his time either - he's also not great at taking detailed notes, writing accurate scope of work documents, etc. He's very good with clients, has a lot of knowledge and experience with the tech stack, but is a "cowboy engineer" if that makes sense. The way I'm thinking about this is that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but for this one person, said weaknesses are directly affecting the company bottom line so they are impossible to ignore. :)
- Loughla 6y ago
  Yep. Set expectations and ensure he gets it (he might not, even if he ran his own shop), work through that process, then get rid of him if you have to. That sucks out loud, but sometimes weaknesses outweigh benefits. And it's your job to draw that line.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Everyone looks to software solutions, but maybe this person needs an assistant of some sort.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    It also depends on how complicated the current software is. If it is simple, then yeah, you probably need to delegate the paperwork to someone else. But maybe the software is needlessly complicated, annoys everyone, but others can deal with it and this specific employee just has a lower frustration tolerance. In that case, making the software easier would make everyone happy. If everyone uses the software every day, and you can reduce the time from 2 minutes to 20 seconds... I am also the kind of person who forgets to write daily logs. But if I set up the web page to open automatically at 4 PM on my computer, then I don't forget, of course. However, in some systems you only need to automatically open some URL, while in other systems it is more like "open the URL, click this link, authenticate, click that link, authenticate again, click another link, and now you finally get to edit the spreadsheet". How much work it is to edit the time fields? Are reasonable default values provided (either your standard work time, or a copy from yesterday), so that on a typical day you only write "did this and that" and click OK? Or do you need to specify the time using a complicated wizard that sometimes gets it wrong, e.g. you make 10 mouse clicks to choose "9:00" and 10 more mouse clicks to choose "17:00", and then you sometimes get an error message saying "you cannot log 32 hours during one day", so you need to erase the whole record and start again? Do you work for a foreign company that speaks a language you don't understand, but you were told it's okay because the company policy is English everywhere... well, except for their time-logging system, which requires you to always choose from several pull-down menus filled with gibberish? How detailed are the logs? Is it enough to give "implemented Jira story 1234" as a description for entire 8 hours of work, or do you need to provide a detailed list of steps, with a time interval for each? Do you need to fill out two separate time logs, one internal for your company, and one external for the client? None of these examples was made up (they are collected from multiple companies though). So, it makes sense to also check whether the software side is sane, and optionally fix it -- maybe give the task to the employee who had problems writing the logs, he will be sufficiently motivated. But sometimes this doesn't help, or for some reason you are not allowed to fix the software... and then it makes sense to hire an assistant.
thrower123 6y ago
It seems like this would be a classic case where hiring an administrative assistant or an intern to handle this scutwork would be the best solution. I find that people rarely think about how much money they are spending having highly-paid people push internal paperwork around...

jasonpeacock 6y ago

This is so true for many things in life, including relationships and parenting :)

gnat 6y ago
I found that the things that worked for me as a parent also worked for me as a manager: treat them as adults, ask questions rather than assume/provide answers, include them in finding solutions to problem rather than dictate, and so on.

enraged_camel 6y ago

He understands why it matters because he used to run his own one-man show before we "acqui-hired" him. But whenever I notice that he doesn't have his time logged in the system, he says "yeah I've been slammed all day" or something similar and promises to get it done soon... and then doesn't. And he genuinely is getting a lot of work done so there's no foul play or anything. The issue isn't just logging his time either - he's also not great at taking detailed notes, writing accurate scope of work documents, etc. He's very good with clients, has a lot of knowledge and experience with the tech stack, but is a "cowboy engineer" if that makes sense. The way I'm thinking about this is that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but for this one person, said weaknesses are directly affecting the company bottom line so they are impossible to ignore. :)

Loughla 6y ago
Yep. Set expectations and ensure he gets it (he might not, even if he ran his own shop), work through that process, then get rid of him if you have to. That sucks out loud, but sometimes weaknesses outweigh benefits. And it's your job to draw that line.
pnutjam 6y ago
Everyone looks to software solutions, but maybe this person needs an assistant of some sort.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  It also depends on how complicated the current software is. If it is simple, then yeah, you probably need to delegate the paperwork to someone else. But maybe the software is needlessly complicated, annoys everyone, but others can deal with it and this specific employee just has a lower frustration tolerance. In that case, making the software easier would make everyone happy. If everyone uses the software every day, and you can reduce the time from 2 minutes to 20 seconds... I am also the kind of person who forgets to write daily logs. But if I set up the web page to open automatically at 4 PM on my computer, then I don't forget, of course. However, in some systems you only need to automatically open some URL, while in other systems it is more like "open the URL, click this link, authenticate, click that link, authenticate again, click another link, and now you finally get to edit the spreadsheet". How much work it is to edit the time fields? Are reasonable default values provided (either your standard work time, or a copy from yesterday), so that on a typical day you only write "did this and that" and click OK? Or do you need to specify the time using a complicated wizard that sometimes gets it wrong, e.g. you make 10 mouse clicks to choose "9:00" and 10 more mouse clicks to choose "17:00", and then you sometimes get an error message saying "you cannot log 32 hours during one day", so you need to erase the whole record and start again? Do you work for a foreign company that speaks a language you don't understand, but you were told it's okay because the company policy is English everywhere... well, except for their time-logging system, which requires you to always choose from several pull-down menus filled with gibberish? How detailed are the logs? Is it enough to give "implemented Jira story 1234" as a description for entire 8 hours of work, or do you need to provide a detailed list of steps, with a time interval for each? Do you need to fill out two separate time logs, one internal for your company, and one external for the client? None of these examples was made up (they are collected from multiple companies though). So, it makes sense to also check whether the software side is sane, and optionally fix it -- maybe give the task to the employee who had problems writing the logs, he will be sufficiently motivated. But sometimes this doesn't help, or for some reason you are not allowed to fix the software... and then it makes sense to hire an assistant.

thrower123 6y ago

It seems like this would be a classic case where hiring an administrative assistant or an intern to handle this scutwork would be the best solution. I find that people rarely think about how much money they are spending having highly-paid people push internal paperwork around...