How Many Times?

How often do you delegate something and then wonder why it's not done?

Crazy, isn't it? Your team members want you to trust them, and for the most part they enjoy the challenges of new assignments, but sometimes they get done and sometimes they don't.

How do you balance total trust and micromanaging the joy right out of the task? You've got to know your people. We're all on different learning curves. We each have personality types that might differ. We live on different levels of maturity. We're not all the same.

The best way I've found to know whether I need to remind someone once or seven times is to know what they need by testing it, over and over. And, it had better be improving or we're having a tougher conversation. Not mean, not the kind where you write them up and start their path out the door, but straight forward, honest and to the point.

How many times do you have to remind someone? Until they start doing exactly what you want without any reminders at all...

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Explore this more in the workshop: Communicating for Results

Comments

No Complete Failure

"Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker." -- Zig Zigler You know that we can learn from our mistakes. You might also know that failure carries many valuable lessons. I like the expression that comes from NLP (Neurolistic Programing) "there is no failure, only feedback." There's always something to learn. Any effort that results in learning is not a complete failure. So it's up to us. While we would never choose to fail at anything (oh horrors!) sometimes we will. Whether we learn or not is completely up to us. Find the learning. Find the success. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

Future Leaders

Guess what: the leaders of the future are watching you today. What will they see? What will they learn? How will they remember you? -- Douglas Brent Smith Developing Leadership Skills

Ask The Question, Still

Every unasked question leaves room for erroneous assumptions. Ask the question. -- doug smith

The Gaps

Are you comfortable with ambiguity? I'm not a fan of not knowing, but I've learned that sometimes I just don't know. Try as I might, I don't understand what is going on with a customer, or a team member, or a boss. The effort to understand everything will always leave gaps. Closing those gaps could take a long time. In the meantime, keep working. -- doug smith

Service Problems

The problem with bad service is that it creates bad customers. Solve your service problem or the problem customers will multiply. -- doug smith

Problem Solving and the Root Cause

How much time do you spent identifying the root cause of a problem? It's a risk to assume that we know the real problem, that the root cause is obvious. Sometimes it takes a harder look. Sometimes understanding the root causes of a problem is more important than solving it. Options open. Possibilities abound. Chances emerge. Perspective clears. Solving a problem? Get a good look at that root cause! -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Small Steps

Incremental goals make geometric goals possible. Little goals get giant goals going. Whatever your goal is, break it down into something small enough to do right now. One step forward is all you need to get going. - - doug smith

When Comfort's Got to Go

Are you comfortable with something that's no good for you? I sometimes find myself completely comfortable with a routine, habit, or situation that I somehow know isn't in my best interest and yet there is something cozy and comfortable about the reliably consistent. Even when it's reliably disappointing, at least it's reliable. We struggle to let go of the reliable. We struggle to approach the unknown. We struggle to let go. Solving a problem may require you to change something your'e still comfortable with. That won't be easy. That might take some courage. I'm willing to work on that this week - how about you? -- Doug Smith

What Can Be

What can be possible right now? Is there a problem facing you that you've been avoiding because it feels like there are already just too many things going on? It's easy to fall into an "all or nothing" mindset where, unable to solve ALL of the problems we manage to solve NONE of the problems. That there are too many problems to solve them all shouldn't stop us from solving the ones we can. If what can be is one solution to one problem that is a wonderful place to begin. -- doug smith

Who's Misunderstood?

When someone is disappointing you they may have misunderstood your intentions. (Or, maybe you have...) The challenge to misunderstanding is that we seldom understand that we have understood. The illusion of truth is as strong as steel. Disappointment, originating in unmet expectations, requires clarity to be cured. Clarify your intentions. Clarify your expectations. Clarify, and confirm. What do you think? -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

Search This Blog