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3 Quick Tips: Managing People

12 May 2013

Following on from last week’s post about ‘How to get the best from your staff’ here are three of my favourite quick tips.
Leadership and management is often really simple at heart, and although it can appear complex, success often rests on simple words and the ability to ask good questions. In the spirit of simplicity, here are three things we can all have some fun with this week.

1) Say thank you twice as much as you do, because the chances are that you currently say it half as much as people would like.

2) When someone says ‘I’ll try and do that’ they are often only agreeing to have a go….and not to complete the task. Smile at them and ask: ‘Are you going to try and do it, or do it?’ They will now have to think about it and make a firm commitment.

3) Ask ‘what’ instead of ‘why’. This is because ‘why’ questions can ‘rubberband’ us back to old home or school situations and we feel the same way as we did when asked ‘why haven’t you tidied your room’ or ‘why did you get that answer wrong?’ As kids we didn’t have a good answer – we were too young to know, and in our confusion we stopped thinking. Now we’re a big person this rubberband effect can cause us to close down our thinking again. However, if we get asked a question such as ‘what was your thinking there?’ or ‘what issues do you have?’ we are more likely to think coherently and provide useful information.

So that’s three quick tips for us all to use.

Next week we’ll have more fun with three really useful questions for leaders to ask.