Rodney, we need you to create a second mailbox for our senior Vice President.
Why?
Well, customers have figured out his email address and they are flooding his mailbox.
How will a new mailbox help?
We won’t tell anyone the address for the new mailbox.
Yeah, that will work until he sends his first email. Listen, we’ve got some pretty smart email administrators on my team. I think we can figure out how to give him what he wants and still be able to manage his mail.
Really? How?
We’ll just send all his email to the spam folder.
When you want something done, it’s always best to tell your employees WHAT results you want, not HOW to do it. If you just give them the goal, they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Part of the problem with being The Smartest Guy In The Room is that you rule out other potentially good ideas. It’s a problem I run into a lot as a Project Manager. My role is not to actually solve technical problems. My role is to make sure we have the right people involved to solve the technical issues.
We solved the SVP issues, but not the way his staff assumed we would.
Why can’t you just give him a new mailbox?
Because we’ll be having this same conversation three months from now. When the second mailbox is full and he wants a third.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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