How to motivate co-workers to “think outside the box” [closed]

Question

Maybe this isn't really the right place to ask this, but I figure worst case scenario my question is closed as not relevant or too abstract.

I am a GIS administrator, I manage our SDE and web map services, do ad hoc-projects for teams without their own GIS staff and assist numerous other GIS users across our organisation when they don't know how to do something.

This last task is becoming more and more frequent as 90% of the other GIS staff seem incapable of thinking inventively. Unless they have every single button click fully documented, with screen-shots, they won't do it.

I would like to know how other people encourage their co-workers to think through problems to come up with a method that works, rather than panicing or saying "I haven't done it before/for a long time/with this software" and passing it on to me.

How can I get them to practice and play around with tools they haven't used before? At this point they won't even join two tables together unless I hold their hand.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions

Answer 1

My deepest sympathies. I'm sure most people here know your pain... however...

I'm pretty sure this doesn't match the requirements laid out in the "What questions can I ask?" section of the FAQ.

"The Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange is for questions concerning geographic information systems and science"

This strikes me more as a management type question as opposed to a GIS/Science type question. Try googling "training techniques" or "managing people" or similar. Or just be blunt with these people, telling them this is part of their job now and to get used to it usually scares people into some self-paced training. At least in my experience.