It’s starts as a normal request, “please go brush your teeth.” Then a few minutes later, “Did you brush your teeth?” After a wee bit longer, “how many times do I have to ask, go brush your teeth.” Before too long it is more of a declaration of war than a simple request.
Finally they emerge from the bathroom and you take a deep satisfying breath. Then when you go to give them a kiss before they leave the house…the truth is revealed! WOW, they never brushed their teeth, they wet the brush, smeared toothpaste on it and everything…with the amount of time they spent making it look like they did the job, they could have actually done the job! What the heck!
This is not an uncommon occurrence with our children, we fight the important battles with them, and for each child it can be different; the rest we chalk up to acceptable losses. There is one arena however that this kind of behavior is way more detrimental…in the workplace.
Do you have an employee, co-worker or even supervisor who seems to be always busy but rarely seems to produce results? Are they constantly saying, “yes I’ll do that right away“, “I‘ll get right on that“, “as soon as I get back to the office I’ll take care of it“, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted ME to do that“, and yet whenever you ask again, because it hasn’t been done, you get the same responses?
As an individual occurrence, this can happen. We are living and working in a world that moves so fast, things can and do fall off our radar. However if this is habitual it can be an indicator of root causes that need to be addressed.
Our children are…well children. They forget, they’d rather play, they don’t understand the consequences of their inaction. That is why we as parents much teach them and hold them accountable and give them boundaries to help them safely navigate their world. We don’t give up on getting them to brush their teeth, cause it’s just too hard. Trust me a 7 year old needing a root canal is much harder, and yes that did happen to my son. He was VERY good at finding ways to not brush his teeth, but he is much better now.
As a manager/supervisor/leader the lines aren’t always as clear. We have to show the way, teach the way, then get out of the way. After that, we have to take the time to inspect what we expect and hold them accountable. What does that mean exactly? That’s not always so black and white.
When I hold a meeting, it’s always a working meeting. If there is a meeting to schedule, a follow up email to be sent, a phone call to be made…I make it right then and there. When one of my team comes to me and asks me to make a call or send a note, I do with them in my office watching and listening. They see my actions, I show them how to do it, they see my results. When I delegate a task to someone on my team, I set the expectation for when it should be done and that I will follow up. I don’t micromanage them asking every 2 hours if it’s been done. I follow up on the results; “I know you were reaching out to Joe yesterday, how did the call go and when is our follow up meeting?”
As each member of the team finds their rhythm, I follow up less, getting out of their way allowing them the autonomy to make great things happen. Some don’t find that rhythm, and my follow-up does become micromanagement, like harping on my children to get their teeth brushed. If you find that going to work is like dealing with your children at home, then you have some work to do. You either need to set the appropriate expectations, show them the way, so you can get out of the way or start sending people to timeout.
If you have some of these challenges, I’d love to hear from you. Come back and visit at “Connectthedotblog”.