A manager delegated the task of receiving, organizing, and posting invoices. The person he delegated to had no idea what went where, no previous experience with anything that had to do with invoices, and he seemed to not be open to questions.
He assumed that this employee would have the know how because it was “expressed” that accounting was something he wanted to get into.
When this was expressed, he meant he was going to take some classes and would like to help when the time came. However, the manager misunderstood “going to class” as “taken some classes.
Soon after all the facts were sorted through, a person was hired to do the tasks of receiving and posting, but the employee lost his desire to learn about accounting.
The whole situation made him phobic of the department and its tasks.
What happened? Why did this delegation go wrong? What needed to be done differently?