Here is one just for Managers and Supervisors (or anyone else)

A mentor of mine one time said, “we often forget what other people don’t know.”

Owner and executives are in the business, as it were, of making business decisions. They or you do it all day every day. Profit and Loss statements, Strategic Objectives, Enterprise Risk Analysis, Employee Relations. It is enough to keep the wisest and best of us up at night … and probably does.

Yet…

The warehouse staff, drivers, IT folks and receptionist may not know and I am certain that they don’t care — as much as you do or as much as you should — that you have to make decisions to keep the organization healthy or at least afloat. It is one of the joys of a leadership position.

It is also an unfortunate fact that the higher you go in any organization the more you know, the more you are held accountable for and the less that you can share with the others within the organization.

Some plans are not appropriate to share. Some information needs to remain confidential. That is the way it goes. Most bosses do what to share information and hope that employees will know and understand why reviews and raises are not given or appreciate the difficulty in coming to certain decisions.

However, an employee’s view is limited by their position in the company and most have zero access to business information and performance reports. Most employees do not know what you know. Consequently, they WOULD NOT LIKELY MAKE THE SAME DECISIONS that you would.

This can lead to feelings of resentment and frustration on both sides. It is not easy to be the decision maker. Expecting to have sympathy for the difficulty is a pipedream. It is not the employee’s job to fully understand the difficulty of management or ownership. It is the manager’s and owner’s responsibility to understand the impact of their decisions on the people and communicate that understanding when the news of the decision is delivered.

The post It’s a Business Decision appeared first on Conflict Management Strategies.

“I have managed a group of 35 direct reports. This group of eight is harder to manage than the 35!”

Sound familiar? If things become more complicated with more variable, why is it that smaller work groups are so much harder to manage than larger ones?

Simple. The smaller the workgroup the more you may know about the individual members. Their preferences. Their foibles. Their history. Because you know more about them, they expect more of you and they expect more of each other. More flexibility. More one-on-one attention. More forgiveness maybe less accountability.

For example: “We all know that Grace is constantly late with assignments and has a short fuse, but her mom is sick so we let it go.”

or

“He has been like that for years-short tempered and cranky. That is just him. We let it go.”

It is fine to have close relationships at work. It is not OK to have relationships that are enabling, co-dependent, or unproductive.

The post Why Are Small Groups So Hard? appeared first on Conflict Management Strategies.

This statement drives me crazy!!! Why? Because it is what the folks a Crucial Conversations would call a “Sucker’s Choice.” That is a belief that people will either be happy or be held accountable.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE hear me! It is not an either-or choice. In fact, it is one choice. Hold them accountable in a humane and predictable way by articulating your expectations. People will not be happy with you if they feel blindsided by allegations that they are not performing their jobs. While it is excellent that people are happy at their jobs, it is not the function of business or government to pay people to be happy. The function of work is work.

If managers, supervisors or leads are ALLOWING PEOPLE TO FAIL BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO UNCOMFORTABLE TO BE GENUINE WITH THEM THEN SHAME ON YOU!

Here is the good news. The conversation is likely not as uncomfortable as you imagine it to be. Talk about your expectations, your assumptions, and the benchmarks. Easy. The conversation is not about their personality traits or lack of skill, or other potentially demeaning stuff. It is about what the job is and requires.

Will there be pushback. YEP. Especially, if you spring this on them. Instead, do some prep work with the entire group so everyone is moving forward.

The post You Will Be Judged – How Managers Fail to Address Workplace Conflict appeared first on Conflict Management Strategies.