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[wishfulthinking]

And in my defense, I'm not a nice person.

I think sometimes it takes not being nice to get the job done. I on the other hand, seem very nice. Underneath, I am a delegating bossy boots that was born to give orders. Sometimes it is better if you get what you see.

 

[wishfulthinking]

If at all possible, make the problem the problem and don't blame the individual (e.g., the process is the problem, not the person that didn't get it done).

Or at least take the time to find out if it is the process and not the individual! Good point.

 

[wishfulthinking]

Bawling out staff in front of other staff is bad for them, for other staff and most of all for you.

Yep, hate it when it happens to me. Will kick myself if I do it to others. The worst public event I have done so far is where one of the team took 2 days off sick (you only need to get a doctors certificate if you are sick 3 days or more in Oz) a couple of times in the past 3 months, and only emailed late on the day to say he wasn't coming in. I said quite loudly first thing on his first morning back (when the rest of the team were at their work stations near by) I want him to print out the sick leave policy, read it, and told him we will discuss it when I return (which I knew wouldn't be until 4pm). Not much more had to be said to this guy, who has since changed his ways, but hopefully the others got the message that I won't tolerate that shit and will pull people up on it.

 

[wishfulthinking]

I was a manager for a few years. My second line, when I first started, had a few pieces of advise.

1. Never let anything go.

I know this sounds like being a real hard ass -- but his point was, once you tolerate something, then it makes it all the harder to deal with a situation later on. At that time, we were really rigid about work hours -- at least getting to work on time (we didn't care how late you were leaving!). So, if someone was late, go talk to them, every time. I had young children at the time, and I applied the same philosophy to them -- and you know what, it worked.

2. Interact with your employees day to day.

Don't make it an event when you show up. In those days, people actually worked in the same location, so I tried to drop in on everyone, every day or at least a couple of times a week, just to chat. I spent a lot of time "goofing off" so to speak. That way, when the time came for a more serious conversation, at least we knew each other. When I went out of management, I revealed this to the last group I'd been working with. Their reaction -- oh -- that's why you haven't come to see us lately. We thought you just didn't like us anymore.

One other thing -- as a first line manager, you are representing your employees to the company, and the company to your employees. Your job is to make sure that both sides come out on top.

A solid "human factor" approach. Glad to see some bosses weren't all about the bottom line!

No 1 is going to be very hard for me. A lot of the time I just don't want to deal with certain stuff and ignore it - now I can't. My old answer of "care factor" will no longer work as people will look to me for the right response. eek.

 

[wishfulthinking]

One young man, God bless the poor soul, apologized repeatedly for his poor attention to his work but wouldn't say more than that he didn't know why he hadn't done what he was meant to and would do better in the future. I stressed several times that I really wanted to know if there was something in the company affecting his performance, something about his duties, something out of the ordinary - thank heaven, that last was the magic phrase. He looked at his feet and said that he didn't want to make excuses, but his girlfriend had been killed in a car accident a week before. He had a crumpled prayer sheet from the funeral in his pocket, which he proferred when he apparently took my expression of surprise for disbelief.

You're right, not only ask, but take the time to listen.