Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: They Are Not You
by Miki SaxonIt’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a Decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.
In case you might think this post contradicts the one about how to be a great boss by giving your people what you wanted from you boss, it doesn’t.
The difference happens if you provide what you wanted, but only the way that would satisfy you, with no consideration of how they want it.
For example, recognition. While most people crave it, they want it displayed in different ways. I’ve always liked mine loud, more or less public and without having to ask. (Asking is akin to reminding your person that it’s your anniversary/birthday/Valentine’s Day, because they obviously forgot.) Others don’t want a fuss; to them, recognition comes from nothing being said. For them, feedback happens when something is wrong, so silence means everything is fine.
The trick is to not only give people what they (and you) want, but to give it to them how they want — sincerely.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
Most of us crave acknowledgement when we do something well, I know I do.
Decades ago when I worked as a recruiter for MRI in San Francisco my boss, “Ray,” wasn’t big on that.
It’s not that he wouldn’t do it, he just never thought about it.
Acknowledgement wasn’t something Ray needed, so he was blind to its effect on others.
When he did give the kind of heady feedback that makes people hungry for more, you could see that he didn’t understand it.
Worse, more often than not, it came in response to what he was told — you literally had to walk into his office and say you closed the deal or got a new client to have it happen.
But praise caught by fishing or out-and-out asking is not worth a whole lot when it comes to motivation.
Nor did he understand how to build a strong team; the kind that could put an ‘Office of the Year’ award on the wall.
I still remember his effort to create the same esprit de corps as “Jeff,” another MRI manager and good friend of his, enjoyed.
The effort failed, probably because Ray considered Jeff’s approach rah-rah stuff — the kind of stuff he was known to disparage.
Ray’s problem was similar to many managers I’ve worked with over the years, i.e., he assumed others wanted to be managed in the same way he liked to be managed.
When Ray did try doing it differently it felt like a con.
Which it was, because he didn’t really believe in what he was doing.
Image credit: Jim Hammer
