Sometimes you need an outside perspective on things.
“They always come to me for the smallest thing. Even after I’ve given them the solutions!”
My client felt that his employees are lazy and don’t follow procedure, even after he had clearly laid it out for them.
Turns out the employees are afraid to take initiative since the boss (my client) used to give them an earful for mistakes in the past.
The lessons here are:
1) If you want your employees to take initiative, you need to allow them to make those mistakes first and provide criticism in a positive manner.
2) There are 2 sides to any story. And most of the time, you need an outside perspective to see them both in an objective way.