describe 3 ways to make sure you understand what your boss is asking
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In Baronial of 2014, we wrote about the five questions to ask when you're thinking of firing an employee. Nosotros utilise those five questions ourselves: An example would be helping clients to make the tough determination to fire an employee. But, more importantly, nosotros use them to help managers determine how to help employees perform at a college level.
Shutterstock Related: The Bedrock of Performance Direction? Communication of Acceptable Behavior.
The questions are:
- Are you sure that your employee fully understands the necessary objectives, and your expectations?
- Accept you removed all roadblocks for him or her that are internal to your company?
- Has the employee been fully trained and given adequate time to practice the requisite skills
- Have y'all motivated the employee to perform?
- Is the employee capable and willing to perform the work?
These questions are so powerful that we believe each deserves a dissever article. Therefore, over the adjacent five weeks, we will explain how to use each question in more than detail. Here is more than particular on Question 1:
Are you lot sure that your employee fully understands the objectives and your expectations?
Managers and supervisors spend the bulk of their time communicating. The Center for Management and Organisation Effectiveness reports that leaders surveyed say they spend nigh eighty pct of their time communicating. This time expenditure includes request employees to consummate specific tasks or solve issues, writing emails to delegate piece of work assignments and training employees in new skills and behaviors.
However, most managers fail to likewise ensure that their employees understand these instructions on a consistent basis. If this is yous, post-obit the three steps beneath will help y'all communicate your expectations clearly and more fully ensure understanding.
1. State the objective in specific, quantifiable and bounded terms. Whether written or verbal, instructions must give the employee enough detailed information that he or she can complete the job correctly. The corporeality of item needed will change given the employee'southward feel with that specific chore.
Even so, we believe that supervisors and managers should err on the side of too much rather than besides little detail. In our experience, most mistakes brainstorm when employees effort to fill in the blanks and stop with the supervisor stating, "That'south non what I meant."
Instructions that are measurable and quantifiable make it easier for both the employee and employer to know when the employee has met the objective. Asking an employee to answer the telephone doesn't supply enough detail. Request him or her to reply the phone inside three rings, using a specific greeting and a pleasant tone of phonation is more likely to get you the behavior you want.
Related: Unhappy Employees Are Costing You: 4 Lessons From Denmark
Finally, timing and availability of resources should be function of the instructions. Providing employees with beginning and ending dates helps to cement expectations. In the initial instructions, managers should relay the names of other people the employee tin involve, whether they can rent additional help and whether they take access to additional money and other resources to consummate the task.
2. Check for agreement.Even after providing detailed instructions, the managing director or supervisor must cheque for understanding. If no one does, and the employee doesn't perform, the fault lies with the manager.
Let'south work through an example. At 8 a.m. one morn, a manager we work with told his assistant that he needed information on the company'southward parking lot capacity and utilization. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, the assistant told the manager that she was leaving for the day -- as she did every day at that time.
When asked for the parking lot data, she explained that she would have it ready first thing in the forenoon; she planned to complete the written report that evening. The manager was upset because he needed the written report for an important staff meeting at 4 p.m. that day. The employee was devastated: She felt she had disappointed her boss and offered to stay to complete the report even though she needed to pick up her children.
The director told her it was okay to leave; he would brand exercise without the information. However, its absence reduced the productivity and results of his staff meeting.
When the manager related this story, we asked if he had been clear as to what time he needed the information and how the data would be used. He confessed he had not. When we asked how his employee could exist expected to know how to prioritize her work without this data, he uttered the all-too-normal response, "Just, I am her boss. I expected her to exercise my work first."
We disagreed: Had he checked for his employee's understanding by asking, "By what fourth dimension practise you think you could have that ready?" he could accept clarified the objective. Like questions that check for agreement include:
- Where volition y'all go the data?
- What format will yous employ to write the report?
- Will you need assistance to consummate the projection?
Asking open up-ended questions allows managers to ascertain whether they have been successful in transmitting their request. As David Brendel reported in theHarvard Business concern Review, "Open up-ended questions promote dialog and ameliorate engagement." So, avoid closed-ended questions such as, "Practice you lot sympathise?" Airtight-ended questions practice not invite dialogue and don't tell you lot if the employee truly understands.
3. Follow-up.The final stride is to set a follow-upwardly fourth dimension, appointment and location. If yous need a report by 4 p.m., yous and your employee should agree that you will receive the report earlier (say, 1 p.m.) at your role to give yous time to review and approve the work. If the job is complicated, or this is the get-go fourth dimension the employee will endeavor the job, you may want to set multiple follow-ups before employee delivers the final product.
Related: Managing the Unmanageable: The 6 Almost Mutual Types of Difficult Employees
If the manager in our example had given a specific, quantifiable and bounded objective; checked for understanding; and fix a follow-up time allowing for rework or redirection, the outcome would take been unlike. Remember, when yous set objectives, your job is to clearly relay your expectations to the employee. Following the three steps detailed above will help to eliminate miscommunication. Side by side: We'll take on the second question, regarding removing roadblocks.
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286366
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