“They don’t obey!”: We find an approach to any employee

Each manager in his managerial practice is faced with a situation where there are few resources in the form of employees, and those that are present cause some inconvenience. You’ll outline a task for them and, it seems, it’s obvious how to act, and they are slow, lazy, training approaches to the table instead of going and doing it! Business coach Elena Malkova gives advice on how to find such an approach to employees so that all instructions are executed immediately and honestly.

# PERSONA #

When the leader becomes dissatisfied with the work of his subordinates, he begins to take action. As a rule, his actions in such a situation are standard and predictable. The first option is as follows: the contractor is deemed unfit, and the personnel manager receives an order to find a new one. In the second case, the head sets the personnel officer the task of reviewing staff motivation. It sometimes comes to imposing sanctions. And finally, in the third option, the manager understands that all personnel need external influence. Employees are trained, and the favorite topics of such trainings are time management, increased responsibility and even emotional intelligence. But standard paths rarely produce outstanding results, and the situation repeats itself. Sometimes this happens until the senior management begins to look for flaws in the management style of the boss himself. And here he is - a vicious circle of Russian management.

Who's guilty? Bad employee and bad manager. And what to do about it? Kick both out. True, this is how we will punish them, but we certainly will not teach them. And the company will lose time, spend money on attracting new managers and performers, and will experience a period of their adaptation. And it is still unknown what benefits and rewards this whole story will bring. To avoid ineffective decisions, it is important for each manager when working with subordinates to remember a few simple principles and follow simple recommendations.

All people are different. They hear and perceive information differently. They also organize the execution process in different ways and relate differently to a particular task.

Let's give an example. The employee performs well familiar clear tasks: plans his activities, prefers to strictly adhere to a given plan. And suddenly, through the fault of another unit, he falls into an emergency. And then the chief "throws" him the task of finding out or solving something. The employee silently and resignedly accepts the entire volume of work, but does not cope with it on time or works until late at night. The cost of these heroic efforts is a long sick leave, emotional burnout, or even dismissal. To prevent such situations from happening, the leader must have a good understanding of who he is dealing with. In other words, what type of people does this or that employee belong to, and what tasks he does better, and what - worse. Let's take a closer look at the four types of people.

Organizer

In the above example, we are talking about a human organizer. Discipline, mobilization, a clear plan, control - this is what he appreciates. Its strength is logical thinking, the ability to work out tactics to the smallest detail, take risks into account, and weigh every step. In a situation of uncertainty or, if necessary, to show a creative approach to business, he experiences difficulties. To think quickly and unconventionally, to seek answers to unobvious questions is not his thing. Rather, he will dig the Internet in search of best practices, find experts, and will follow the letter of the law and instructions. Therefore, it is necessary to manage the activities of such an employee reasonably, relying on documents, real terms, and algorithms that are understandable to him. Do not “throw” him tasks that still need to be worked out properly. In communication with such an employee, everything should be clear, at the “plan-result” level, and in his activity there should not be unrealistic deadlines, overestimated requirements for independence and initiative. Also, the organizing staff do not tolerate constant changes in the course: the business must be started and brought to an end.

How to identify and distinguish: Listen carefully to his "language." Organizer's words: “stages”, “plan”, “streamline”, “let's do it already”, “nothing to sit idle”, “you need to go step by step”. Watch him. This person takes time to streamline his thoughts, turn to the best practices and find the right links. He keeps his workplace in perfect order, always mobilized and strives to follow the regime. There is a clear logic in his actions, and he does not like distractions and breaking the script.

Creator

An employee with creative thinking is suitable for performing creative tasks related to the development of non-standard solutions. Such a person is always full of energy, he has a lot of jokes and provocations in store. He loves short-term projects and non-standard tasks. It is much more difficult for him to deal with reports, digital data and tactical decisions. He thinks broadly, sees new horizons where others observe only fog, but the accuracy of cause-and-effect relationships does not particularly appeal to him. What to do? Accept and learn to benefit from these features of creative thinking. For a manager, the difficulty in dealing with creative employees lies precisely in the fact that they do not like detailed elaboration of the plan, step-by-step control, nit-picking, and when the main result is achieved, they often lose sight of the details. It is better to control this type of employees in the form of an unobtrusive conversation: as a rule, people with a creative mindset like to discuss various issues. In the process of dialogue, the whole picture becomes clear for them, and they can act on the basis of the agreements obtained as a result of communication.

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How to identify and distinguish: He has several ingenious tactics and innovative ideas, as well as a bunch of unrealized projects. Listen to his "tongue": "shuffle", "twist", "see the picture as a whole." This is what the creator says.  

Analyst

Many managers note that they have difficulty managing employees with an analytical mindset. Usually these difficulties are described as: “It seems that he is the boss over me!” And this impression is partly true. Analyst is focused on the main result. His focus is on goal, resources, risks. He quickly thinks, never goes astray and has little regard for the weaknesses of others. Why? Because the relationship is not as interesting to him as business tasks. To manage analytic employees, the leader himself needs to have a strong will, be persistent and clearly convey to the organization's subordinate goal. Employees with an analytical mindset well understand the roles in the hierarchy and easily accept the rules of the game, so it will be useful to indicate to them the range of responsibilities and authorities, and explain who is in charge. The more accurately the analyst employee understands what is expected of him, the better he will be able to organize his activities. What is really difficult for the analyst is to resolve the contradictions, negotiate interests and motivate others to exploit. Relations for him - a dark forest!

How to identify and distinguish: “Language” of the analyst: “fact, goal, result”, “disassemble into components”, “think in large blocks”. The analyst will come to you with a ready-made solution; he does not speak flatteringly about meetings and collective forms of work and is always worried about achieving targets.

Collectivist

Collectivists are well versed in relationships because they are people-oriented. Logic and cold calculation are alien to them. They are fully focused on justice, the vital interests of people and psychological comfort. Collectivists are easy to recognize by how much they get in touch, how much they know about the privacy of other employees, as well as their responsiveness and love for joint holiday events. Of course, such employees have great potential to maintain the right atmosphere in the team. But leaders sometimes see them as cunning, scheming, and gray cardinals. Why is that? The fact is that in a situation of dissatisfaction, employee collectivists are really inclined to use the weaknesses of the boss, delegate tasks back, form protest groups. They are just trying to get justice the way they understand it. To work with such employees brings a positive effect, it is important for the leader to remember how important communication is for collectivists. Therefore, do not be lazy to constantly explain to collectivists why it is so important to complete one or another task, discuss with them topics that are not related to work, support initiatives of unifying events. And even more so, avoid unmotivated punishments, opaque decisions. They will immediately be perceived as a meaningless demonstration of power, which directly infuriates collectivists.

How to identify and distinguish: Observe what the person is talking about with other people in the team. If he quickly reduces the distance in communication, establishes a warm relationship, always worries about the upcoming holidays - most likely he gives signals of philanthropy. If he willingly volunteers to be a mentor, participates in social events not from career considerations, but from the heart - then he confirms his preferences.

People are managed through communication. Those managers who believe that employees are already obliged to know and do everything are mistaken. Those leaders who believe that no one knows their employees better than them are mistaken too. Those leaders who use communication to clarify information are right to influence working relationships through discussion.

It is also important to remember that each employee has his own life cycle in the organization. You can always meet in the team both those who are energized and boldly take on new tasks, and those who are already saturated with their work, do not love it, do not value the benefits received from it. In these cases, the leader should try not to chop off his shoulder, but to understand the situation, change it in such a way that it is beneficial to everyone, and set his style to the employee’s style. But if all the efforts to adapt to the characteristics and preferences of the employee do not justify themselves, and the situation becomes confused and the work tasks cease to be fulfilled, then there will be a need for a serious management decision.

Elena Malkova - A business trainer with 10 years of experience in training entrepreneurs, an expert in the field of management communications, management, customer service and training of internal trainers.
Co-founder of the agency "Malkova and partners."

Malkova and partners - a company providing training services for managers and staff, as well as advising businessmen in the areas of team management, optimization of management systems, setting technology services in the organization and others. Among the clients are Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Moscow Jewelry Factory, Bank of Russia, Uralsib Bank, Auchan, Rosno.