Helping your managers help themselves
August 19, 2010 by Tim GouldPosted in: Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Management
Is it possible that HR people are too helpful?
One of your managers has an employee with a bad attitude and comes to you for help. What do you do?
Bet you answered something along the lines of, “Try to solve his or her problem.”
That might not be the best approach.
Simply handing answers to your managers impairs their ability to develop into top supervisors, many experts say.
Better idea: Help managers find the answers themselves by posing a few probing questions.
Three-phase plan
A few tips to help supervisors develop more self-sufficiency:
Ask the right questions. The best kinds of questions? Ones that motivate managers to think in new ways.
Examples: “Can you explain more about this situation?” and “What are the consequences of going this route?”
The long-term payoff: They’ll learn how to handle similar situations in the future – without your help.
Show them you care. Asking for supervisors’ ideas shows you think their ideas are worthwhile.
Example: “Based on your experience, what do you suggest we do here?”
Stay on the positive side. Avoid questions that focus on why managers didn’t succeed – they undermine confidence.
Examples: “Why are you behind schedule?” and “What’s the problem with this?”
Tags: learning, management, Supervisors, training
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August 23rd, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Excellent article! This is so simple yet so powerful. My experience (29 years) has shown me that relationship based management as demonstrated in this article builds the best leaders for the future because not only are you listening and showing them you care, you are also showing that what they think matters…you trust them!
Again, great article.
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
This is the coach approach, what us coaches are taught in our training. Very effective, very powerful. It’s a large part of making our clients successful.
August 24th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Yes, a good article. If one has knowledge and know-how on employing MI (Motivational Interviewing) techniques, this will really pay off. It is indeed about “coaching.”
August 31st, 2010 at 3:16 pm
The best thing we can do is teach employees to be better at their jobs, not do their jobs for them. How well this can be practiced depends upon what the top of the organization perceives HR’s role to be.