Comments on: “Just tell me what to do”

By: Scott Messinger

Scott Messinger — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:58:10 +0000

I would like to point out that this is not necessarily a bad thing. With today’s flat organizations, management is pushing more responsibility down to lower levels of the organization than ever before. Many of these people simply don’t have the training to take on this level of responsibility.

Imagine the master carpenter, a wizard with woodwork, suddenly being asked to mill his own lumber, make his own nails, negotiate with customers about materials, and manage a group of interns.

He is GOOD at making cabinet. He SUCKS at all these other things.

How do you best use his talents? Do you let him focus on making cabinets? Or do you insist that he do all these other things for which is is both ill-prepared and has no talent?

This is why people say “just tell me what to do”. They have an innate sense of their strength, and they need someone else to point them in the right direction.

Management today has been caught up in this idea of employee empowerment without realizing that some people simply don’t have the skills to be empowered. And there is nothing wrong with that.

By: Brad Jermeland

Brad Jermeland — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:21:24 +0000

I agree with Seth’s observations for why others like to be told what to do. It is a way for others to abdicate responsibility for decisions. If they are being told what to do they have no responsibility for the outcome of decisions.

By: Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:21:31 +0000

Hi Heidi,

I think data can put an objective, rather than subjective, face on this. What kind of data could you collect that would open up some minds?

Also check out Crucial Conversations (http://bit.ly/ap6iaZ) or Fierce Conversations (http://bit.ly/9oO3hd)!

By: Heidi Knepper

Heidi Knepper — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:43:26 +0000

I think all of this discussion is extremely valuable! An issue that I face is that when confronted with this behavior many teachers (dare I say almost all??) that I deal with become angry and defensive. How do you encourage teachers to face the fact that they are doing this, and ease them into change without awakening the monster within? A perfect example that I see in my state (Minnesota) is the Q Comp intitiative which allows teachers to set goals to be reached and this is tied to pay (I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the concept, just using it as an example). When faced with this, many teachers beg administrators to “just tell me what my goal should be”, “what SHOULD I be writing for a goal?”, etc.

By: Lyn

Lyn — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:13:37 +0000

Thanks, John, I do have a system in place but maybe it could be better. I wasn’t looking for them to provide me with constant reminders to come into the room so much as I was asking the 3 team leaders I was meeting with to help me keep a pulse on the climate of their grade levels/hallways/situations. I think that is a fair request.

By: Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:45:04 +0000

@Dean Shareski: Great post. Sorry I missed it before. Thanks for sharing!

@Andrew FitzSimons: That’s pretty interesting. Right now I’m reading Futurecast by Robert Shapiro, which argues that China’s economic success has occurred because its authoritarian leadership has been able to initiate sweeping economic changes despite the accompanying gut-wrenching societal impacts. In contrast, India is moving much slower because of its less authoritarian, often messy democratic process. In other words, China’s only been able to move quickly BECAUSE it can get away with being so authoritarian. Every significant decision is made by a group of 9 people…

It’s an excellent book, by the way!

http://bit.ly/9rVWZf

By: Dean Shareski

Dean Shareski — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:31:21 +0000

Same title, slightly different angle but quite similar. http://ideasandthoughts.org/2009/12/10/just-tell-me-what-to-do/

By: Andrew FitzSimons

Andrew FitzSimons — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:40:40 +0000

Good schools and teachers and parents and communities plot their way through this issue skilfully. Schools are a key instrument of socialisation, as such learning to work and learn and play and think collaboratively is essential. This school aims to, ‘educate adolescents’ and to graduate ‘young adults’; ie increasing autonomy as they get closer to the end of Y12. The process is the key ‘mattter for judgement’.

The degree to which this is done is of course a matter for broad and never ending discussion. Different cultures take different approaches; the Sydney Morning Herald’s Finance correspondent ["The East is Red"] has been discussing China thoughtfully in recent weeks. He is arguing that China’s economic future is being damaged because authoritarian/collaborative culture is limiting creativity and innovation.

By: Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:34:30 +0000

@John Ranta: I think we’re in concurrence. I do think it’s socialized into both students AND teachers. After a while, it becomes a circular, self-propagating, mutually-reinforcing system.

By: John Ranta

John Ranta — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:35:15 +0000

@Scott – I appreciate all the data & studies you posted. They tell me (this may be a subtle or even meaningless difference) that it is not so much that students want to be told what to do, as it is that the teachers in these studies found it easier to lecture students than to engage them in other kinds of learning. I wonder if that is due to “socialized compliance” or lack of creativity or laziness or pedagogical inertia, or…something else?

@Lyn – I think that if you want to create a collaborative culture you have to find a system for getting into classrooms that doesn’t depend on reminders from teachers. I understand the many ways that you (we) can get distracted by the urgent yet trivial, but don’t you risk sending the message to teachers that visiting them is not important to you if you need them to keep reminding you to do it?