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FWD: Lack of self-awareness in a writer...what to do
Subject:FWD: Lack of self-awareness in a writer...what to do From:TECHWR-L Administrator <admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:28:18 -0600
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I manage 10 writers. We are largely geographically dispersed
and, with the exception of 2 writers, all have less than 2
years with the company (I have just over 2 years). I'm building
this group from a collection of people who work for the same
company into a team that consistently produces quality
information. It's been a long and hard 2 years but we've made
a lot of progress. We just won a bunch of awards at the local
STC competition and I'm very proud.
Tom was assigned to my department 8 months ago and is physically
in my building. He's been with the company for 10 years and
has the most senior writing title available at the company. In
the 10 years, he's worked as a course developer in a group that
had no leadership until just before he transferred out to be the
engineering writer. As the engineering writer, he wrote (?)
technical material that went on the support site and did other
writing. Reading his work from both times, I suspect strongly he
gathered what others wrote and put it all together into one place.
Tom spent 3 months training on our process, our writing style and
guidelines, and so on. At the end of that time, he assured me he
understood what, why, and how we were doing what we do. He met with
me and my boss and said he felt ready. So I started giving him
assignments appropriate to his job title.
He's not flourishing. Tom violates our process, our writing
guidelines, and our style guide. His writing is weak - passive
voice and not user-focused. He works 40 hours a week in a department
where we all work 45+ hours a week. He doesn't take ownership of his
projects and drive them the way we expect a most senior level writer
to do.
This would all seem to be a training issue except in his self
evaluation, he gave himself Greatly Exceeds (5) in almost all
areas. He said he's the Go To Guy for tools (he's weak in our
tools), he listed writing one Work Procedure as a big deal (the
other writers in the same year wrote 6 to 10 each), and so on.
He wants to be a team lead. The disconnect is serious. He was
shocked at my review (barely 3 and backed by my boss), as he was
rated at a 5 in the past years. By people who knew nothing
about professional technical writing.
He's not worked in a professional group of writers before and
never under leadership with process and procedure. Tom says he
understands our process and then continues to do what things how
he's used to. It looks passive aggressive, but I'm not sure that's
it. He seems to genuinely want to do it right but it's not
happening. There's a disconnect in his head between what
he says he knows and what he does. Tom thinks they map and they don't.
Recent example: He previously ignored our process and released
several manuals and help that had not gone thru peer or production
reviews and then was shocked I was upset. For his current project,
Tom decided he was done and we went thru the release process (which
was good). I found out at a senior staff meeting this week that as
far as he knows, the software hasn't even been compiled yet. He
hasn't tested the docs or the help in the build. He's declared the
docs gold and issued an errata because a reviewer found a
problem in the docs after he locked down the docs. Except as far
as he knows, he says, there is no build and he hasn't tested the help
or the docs. Meaning he CAN'T lock the docs down yet. And he seems
genuinely puzzled why I'm upset.
Tom isn't able to generalize from data points. This is a known issue
with him - my boss (who has worked at the company for 7 years) had
expressed frustration with him that he lacks the ability to abstract.
And I think this is part of the problem as well. The example above
is a good example of not generalizing - he got in trouble for not
following the peer and production review process so this time he did
those. Except he did them maybe as much as 3 weeks too early.
I've coached, I've raised my voice, I've talked to him. I'm at
wits end - I don't know what to do next. Every time we talk about
what he's done, he is shocked to discover that he did it wrong and
promises to not do it again. And he doesn't do that specific thing
again but he does the general class of things again because he can't
abstract. I don't know how to get thru to him.
Functionally, he's a baby writer, except he's paid and titled at
the most senior level in the company. He doesn't know our technology
(although people think he does because he's been here so long) and
his writing is fairly weak. I can't match him with a less senior
writer for buddy learning because most of my other writers are
technically less senior than him. I can't let him team lead my new
writer to teach him our way (the best way to learn a subject may be
to teach it) because he could screw the new writer up badly and we
don't have time to unlearn the new writer.
I'm sorry this is so long. I'm looking for ideas because I'm flat
out. Tom is easy going and well liked in the company. But for some
reason, I can't get thru to him. I'm beginning to think this is a
failure of my management.
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