Three Little Words

If you have ever managed a team of people then you know what can happen. You have an "in tray' that groans from the weight of paper or emails or "to dos" that flow from the staff or from your bosses or from both.

Indeed you can end up feeling stressed and vulnerable just trying to respond to all of the traffic that comes your way and often this can end up with you actually doing very little of the work that you want to accomplish.

What's the answer? Three little words!

I can't actually write them down for you and I can't actually tell you what they should be. All I can tell you is that there should be no more than three little words that you use in response to any piece of information that you receive.

The beauty of this technique is that when someone hands you a tome of their work you can turn it around in virtually the time it takes to scan the contents.

There is no attempt at providing long winded analysis and commentary. Your response as a supervisor is merely to give brief feedback and where appropriate directions on what to do or what not to do.

That, is the essence of good management.

Let me give you some examples of what might be suitable, one positive and then one negative response at a time:

"Yes"
"No"
"Let's discuss"
"Do it again"
"Excellent!"
"Wrong"
"Thank you"
"What is this?"
"Well done!"
"Are you serious?"
"Go ahead"
"Stop this now!"
"Please progress"
"Think of consequences"

I am certain that the fertile imagination of each individual supervisor will be able to add to this theme of commentary and the situations which are going to be faced will help to shape the responses that are made.

Your in-tray will shrink, your health will benefit and your stress levels will decline markedly.

"What about the staff member?" you ask.

Very well, what about the staff member?

He/she will learn (some more slowly than others) to want to obtain from you the positive comments and not the negative ones. He/she will learn that negative comments usually mean that you are not happy with the outcome of the work and will not permit it to be implemented or will not take the matter to the next level of management because in your opinion it is not yet ready to be progressed.

Given very little direction on what to fix or how to do something differently the staff member will have the motivation to learn quickly or face a massive increase in his/her frustration levels.

As the quality of the work improves and as the staff member starts to receive more and more positive comments and encouragement to take further responsibility, he/she will be ready for the next move up the corporate ladder and will in fact have learned how to make more useful decisions in the corporate world.

I commend the 'three little words' technique to one and all.