Wake Up To An Issue or Problem

Are your people waiting for you to wake up to an issue or problem?

There are many tough things about being the boss, about being a front line supervisor or manager. While it is possible to let many of these tough things slip away and hide, the fact is that they don't just go away AND your people are expecting you to DO something about them.

Do you know what they are? Do you know what to do? Have you asked your people?

IF YOU'RE THE BOSS, find out if anyone on your team is waiting for you to wake up on an issue or problem -- and then wake up!

Partner up on the answers. Implement your solutions. Get moving. Standing still as the boss just isn't an option.

It doesn't have to be your personal solution or your personal self who makes the change -- but as the supervisor or manager you must get in there and get involved.

Your people are waiting.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Learn more in the workshop: Supervising for Success

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The Benefits of Supervisory Training

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"An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard." -- Gene Knudsen Hoffman Without contrary evidence it always seems like we're right. Even WITH contrary evidence we get stuck often defending our story, our view. The story may not be wrong, but it is surely incomplete. Listen. Ask questions. Understand. Learn. High performance leaders look for common ground. -- doug smith

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What's the problem with anonymous feedback? The list is long. When people can say anything they want, without any accountability, they are sometimes rude. The feedback becomes exaggerated. Not knowing what to do with it (who do you try to please?) it frustrates the person receiving the feedback. Anonymous feedback encourages anti-social comments. It opens up a level of venting that is not healthy for either party. And, rather than building relationships, it tears them down. The best place for anonymous feedback is the garbage. It's too easy to be negative when no one knows who you are. Hold people accountable. Teach them that two-way communication is responsible, respectable, and useful. Let's keep the trash talking on the basketball court and build relationships of worth at work. -- Doug Smith

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How are you at keeping up? Change is so rapid that adjusting, and evolving, has become a full time job. We roll with the changes, we drive new changes, we let go of the old. It's not getting easier, and it's getting faster. I work at it. I keep learning. I keep adjusting, and still... By the time I have it figured out it's time to try something else. Instead of getting frustrated, here's how I like to look at it: change is growth. Faster change is faster growth. Getting better is growth, so the more change the better. Are you with me on that? Because the alternative is slow-motion decay, and we don't want that, do we? -- Douglas Brent Smith

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