what do you do when you can't trust your techs?

I've been (and sometimes still am) that "bitter and unlikeable guy", and have concluded that everything lies in a tech's motivation, and you are not able to influence someone else's motivation, if you try for too long, you will get stuck in an endless loop and get demotivated yourself. In my case, I started at a small MSP with a group of helpdesk guys ~3 years ago. I grew out of the desk quickly and moved to engineering/projects, and have stayed in close contact with the guys, and worked with them to give them as much help/guides/training as they need, but it has had zero impact. The same core of helpdesk guys is still there, they've supported several different platforms, and have been given many new tools / scripts but their technical skills are still as dreadful as they were when I joined. They are afraid to touch things they are unfamiliar with, want their hands held any time they touch anything that does not have a default solution, do not read error logs, do not read E-mail headers, etc. Most importantly, they expect things to be handed to them rather than having to learn/memorise/try things. I blamed myself for them not learning the entire time and poured a stupendous amount of effort into creating guides, automations, forms, processes, training workshops, etc. for them, but it never mattered. There were **always** discussions about stuff not being clear enough, things being too hard, they wouldn't follow the processes/guidelines, etc. The worst is when they'd just sit in during a training, do absolutely nothing, and then forward the next ticket regarding the subject matter to me anyways, then, I'd overhear them talking to eachother about wanting another training so they could "get away from the phones for a bit". Recently we had a new guy join, he was fresh out of school and had zero experience in actual company environments, but he ***really*** wanted to learn. I gave him the same treatment I've given the rest of that core, but he's growing and evolving at a shocking rate, because he **cares**. When reflecting with the group on why the new guy is evolving/growing, and the rest is not, everyone just says "he's better", or "he's more motivated". There's nothing you can do as an external party. Improve your own skills, work with the team members that you know are good/want to improve, and try to be nice/courteous to the rest, but don't allow them to "use" you, document and let management know via writing if things happen, eventually they'll make a business decision and cut dead weight. In my opinion it's the hardest part of the job.