management question

[Aliquid]

I get the impression that most of the comments are from people who have never worked in government. As someone who has been directly or indirectly working for various government agencies since the 90s, I can tell you that your approach will pay off.

I'd be much happier if having noted that, management then decided the task doesn't have to be done, or finds out why it has to be done, or if it can be changed to something that's actually useful.

The decisions are made above management. There are many things that are done in my current quasi-government agency that the CEO grudgingly agrees "There is nothing we can do about it... so just make it happen"

Ideally, in management, you'd be in a position to understand why "stupid" tasks are important, and to explain it directly to the employee if asked. There's always a reason for it, even if it's just CYOA.

Most of the time, sure. Sometimes the reason is that an elected official wants to personally brand an initiative for ego reasons, and they aren't experts in the field... at all. Sometimes it is high-level bureaucrats putting processes in place that helps their preferred department/agency/area, but it ends up shafting your team. You can't stop it, there isn't much point in complaining, but you do need to accept that it is dumb so you can do damage control.

your subordinates don't have to understand why everything gets done, they just have to be onboard with accomplishing the goal.

My god no. I don't hire people like that. I know business areas who do, and they turn into the epitome of bureaucratic departments. Staff who fill out checklists without any critical thought or even asking why.

Makes me think of a joke:
"A man is sitting in a coffee shop watching some city workers on the boulevard. One digs a hole, the other fills it in... and they move on and do it again. Being curious, he eventually goes out and asks what's going on. They respond, 'the guy who puts in the tree is sick today' "

I don't want staff who just do things without thinking about it. I need them to make judgement calls. I need them to know why they are doing things, so they can anticipate problems and give me a heads up before things go sideways.

Someone from another department was talking to me about a checklist that their staff were using. 8 steps to completing a specific task. I looked at it and said "you do realize that step #6 stopped being relevant 6 years ago right?" For 6 years the staff were taking time to complete step number 6 because it was on the list... even though it had to do with sending info to an organization that _didn't exist anymore, and hadn't for 6 years_

When a new decision comes from high up, if my staff say "that's a dumb idea", I tell them "you need to do better than that. You need to tell my why it is a dumb idea, and what sort of mitigation strategies we need to put in place to fix it." The ones that pull that off eventually get promoted.