'Step Up to Leader' Post > Tangential Question

[Sandy Harris]

On 9/12/07, Agnes Starr <zigrocstarr at yahoo.com> wrote:

> What do you do if you ask an employee to do something and they refuse to do it?
> Suppose for example you request an item via email and the subordinate shoots
> back and email that says "No, I am not going to do it that way. " ...

Step one is to find out why. Does the email give reasons? If not, talk
to them or
ask in email.

They might have good reasons for what they are doing, or at least reasons that
make sense to them. They might even be right. Until you know the reasons,
you cannot know what to do.

I've had more than one boss request things that seemed dumb to me, things
that I did not want to waste time on. Often I'll humour them and just do it. If
not I'll usually "just say no" thinking the problem is obvious enough even the
boss should see it. If you don't see it, ask me.

> Or you make requests and they continually ignore them, and you know they are
> doing it intentionally to be defiant.

How do you know? I sometimes ignore requests I think are dumb. Would you
see that as me deliberately trying to be defiant?

-- 
Sandy Harris,
Nanjing, China