ETA: The last eight-ish posts weren’t there when I started, so much of this is redundant …
Both of these are level disconnects between you and she.
She thought the task was “Call manufacturer to ask for stock art & report back the results to OP”. You thought the task was “Find suitable art by hook or by crook, using any and all resources on Earth & don’t come back without the art.”
You can start to fix this by ensuring that she understands what the task really is. And you’ll probably have to set some boundaries on what it isn’t. i.e. “no chartering a helicopter for $100K to take the pictures you wanted.”
Another issue is she apparently doesn’t know what authority she has. When the vendor said “no”, how much authority did actually she have to accept something else, but close? More importantly, how much authority for variations did she *think *she had? If there’s a gap there, you need to either train out that difference, or get a lot better at assigning tasks and boundaries.
Overall this sounds like a person well-suited for a narrow bureaucratic job, or who had a very narrow bureaucratic schooling. And is still stuck thinking that way. It may well be this trainee can’t be trained up to the level of abstraction you want. At least not without a lot more experience on the context of what’s possible and what’s not.
She will be the only person doing this job going forward, so no, it’s not a position where she will be an interchangeable assistant.
She wouldn’t be purchasing the “binders” but bringing forward the options she’s found to management with her recommendations for cost, speed of delivery etc.
“The manufacturer” IS a big entity. We don’t have a contact to ask for, and it’s rare (but becoming less rare, thank og) that we do. So it’s up to her to push forward and find that person. She knows what she needs, she can ask intelligently, but she stops.
As far as empowerment, at this point she only answers to me. Going forward she will answer directly to the bosses and maybe this is my bad, but I want her to be prepared to face what they will expect from her.
And AnaMen, I’ve said that or similar to her on quite a few different occasions. Makes me feel like a terrible hard ass, and I think it make her feel badly. Which is not my goal.
You’re basically asking, “How do I make her have creative problem-solving skills?”
Honestly, the times I’ve seen* folks go from, “Nope, that’s impossible,” to “Nope, not currently possible because X, Y, and Z, but we can get around that if we try A and B, or C could work if … etc.” the transition in mindset has happened because it was modeled by others.
In one instance, the person was me. I started working with someone who took “That’s not possible” as a personal challenge, after a long time working directly under someone whose attitude was … less creative.
In my experience, Millennials seem to sometimes struggle with confrontation in the workplace and what you might see as negotiation might feel like a major conflict to them. You might have to frame your expectations differently.
I know the situations aren’t at all alike, but the way the OP put this is the way I’ve read women say men have approached them when they turn them down for dating or sex, and it’s a little creepy.
If you’re hiring employees, do you want one who meekly accepts “no” after inquiring about a single potential solution, or do you want one who persists and explores and negotiates until arriving at an acceptable solution (or being satisfied that an acceptable solution is truly impossible)?
Gladhanding salesmen get more sales than wallflowers.
Sounds like a case of TOO much detail in your instructions. If you said “Call the manufacturer and see if they have 1000 blue folders.” and she did that and the answer was “no”, then you’ve failed to adequately describe what you wanted, because she did exactly what you asked. How can doing exactly what you asked her to do be wrong?
Tasking someone with that amount of detail is pointless, you could just do it yourself. Instead, I’ve found that changing it to what your requirements are, makes the result something that is useful: “I need prices for 1000 blue folders from at least 3 vendors” <-- this leaves no room for a “no” answer and REQUIRES thought and problem-solving skills.
As I read this thread it occurs to me that I’ve never had a job where saying “No” to my boss wasn’t enough, nor have I ever employed people who couldn’t say a simple “No” to me on a task.
Examples in the clerical world… My guidelines have always been really specific. “Create thirty binders exactly like the first one.” “Come up with a menu for a lunch meeting and then get approval.” “Order 20 pencils from X vendor.” My creativity wasn’t up for negotiation. I was a taskmonkey.
“I ordered you 10 pencils instead” would be an incorrect answer. “I ordered you 20 pens instead” would be an incorrect answer.
Even in cold data mining, if I couldn’t get contact data from one company, I’d just move onto the next in my list of a thousand, and never be done, I didn’t have time or inclination to go bust anyone’s door down. We did a lot of inbound stuff.
“Well, I got the contact information of the janitor, not the CEO” is not an acceptable answer.
Now, the people I say no to all the time are my customers.
Customer: Do X in Y fashion.
Me: We don’t do that in Y fashion, only in Z fashion.
or
Me: We don’t do that, call J.
or
What you want is impossible as X, only as C.
Customer: Okay.
In that scenario, is the trainee the customer coming back and saying, “They don’t do it in Y?” and leaving it at that? Because then that’s just ridiculously poor communication and some vendor is losing a sale because of it.
That’s because they were raised in a culture of constant instruction and lack of direct social interaction.
As a manager, I get what the OP is saying. Basically he wants his employee to show more initiative and be more proactive. Some of this does come from age and experience. A junior employee might not have enough context to do more than follow simple instructions.
Some of this will be specific to the culture of the company. A lot of big companies, people are not only expected to act like mindless drones, they get upset whenever their routine is disrupted in any way. Other companies, you are expected to be constantly looking for ways to solve problems and not wait to be told what to do by your boss.
I think introverts also tend to be more passive in this regard as well. Since they want the human interaction to be over ASAP.
I dunno, if I’m gonna have to effin call someone, I’m sure as hell going to make sure to exhaust all options in order to minimize the chances I’ll have to do it again.
I’m going to repeat a bunch of responses (but when did that ever stop anyone here before? :p)…I’m not a Millennial (born in '78), but I empathize with your new coworker. She’s new, she doesn’t see the big picture yet, and she doesn’t yet know what her margins are or what her boss expects of her. She doesn’t know how much responsibility she’s allowed to have or creativity she’s allowed to exercise.
Also, could you clarify your position a little bit? What do you mean by “all of the ways she tried to get around that no”?
If I’m new on the job and you tell me, “Call our vendor and order 100 widgets,” and I call and they say, “I’m sorry, we can’t do that for you,” for all I know, the conversation is over. You wanted 100 widgets from the vendor and I need to report to you that you can’t get them. Unless you have told me already that
[ul]
[li]you just need 100 widgets (another vendor could do it), or[/li][li]you would settle for 50 widgets if I stuck with the same vendor, or [/li][li]the vendor will allow you to order 50 now and 50 next month, or[/li][li] there are some things called gidgets that will work just as well, [/ul][/li]I won’t think to ask for that because I’m new. I’m still in training mode; learning about these possibilities is part of the training…right?
Or do you expect her to to hear “no” from the vendor and try to cajole the vendor into doing it anyway?
She WASN"T instructed to seek options as noted by several posters
She has no authority to purchase, negotiate, or establish a relationship with a vendor and may be forced to lie or grovel to get results. Then you will quickly scan through her list to get the one item you really wanted. Seems very de-motivating…
An assignment of a specific project to determine the general availability of “binders” would seem much more satisfying for both of you.
I started working with someone who took “That’s not possible” as a personal challenge, after a long time working directly under someone whose attitude was … less creative.