Garry S Work Tools

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Develop trust and confidenceKen's work tools

Ken: Stressed out / Ken used:

the decision tool
record of a discussion with a team member.

Problem

I can’t figure out what’s going on with Sean. He has the same workload as everyone else but gets really stressed about it. He switches from task to task, not completing anything, and he’s causing us to get behind.

Up Front! Toolbox: Develop plans and schedules—Ken's work toolsPage 1 of 3

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Decision tool

Up Front! Toolbox: Develop plans and schedules—Ken's work toolsPage 1 of 3

To save these work tools to your computer – pull down the File menu and choose Save As … and give it a file name of your choice

Record of discussion

Here’s the record I kept of my meeting with Tim

Date/time / 3rd February
Meeting purpose / Find out why Sean is having trouble getting his work done.
Present / Sean, me
Summary / Gave examples to Sean of when I’d seen him switching from task to task, not completing anything.
Explained importance of these tasks and the effect of him not completing them.
Sean agreed there was a problem; said he panics when he thinks there’s a lot of work to do, and he loses track of what he’s doing; his way of coping is to start the next job so he can feel he’s getting somewhere.
We talked about this for a while and we came up with strategies to help him focus on the task at hand
Sean said he was aware of falling behind in his work and that really stressed him out even more, and was grateful that I was taking an interest in him, and helping him.
Outcomes / Sean agreed to write a list of the things he has to do – as soon as he starts work and after he comes back from his break.
He will keep tick off each task as he finishes it, and keep these lists for himself – so he can see his own progress – and to show me at the end of each shift.
Next meeting / We will talk again this time next week to see if the strategies are helping.

Review

Talking to Sean off the floor worked, it was neutral space for both of us and he opened up about his stress levels. The one week review went well, the to-do lists are helping him focus on the job to be done, but occasionally he still gets really stressed out and loses track of what he’s doing. Just pointing out the ticked-off jobs on his list helped reassure him though, so that was good.
Without me suggesting it, Sean said he’d talk to our human resource people about the problem. I hope he does, I think it will do him good to talk to someone outside work about this.

Up Front! Toolbox: Develop plans and schedules—Ken's work toolsPage 1 of 3