If You're a Manager, Don't Do These Two Things
Being a good manager isn’t easy. There are a lot of skills involved, a lot of knowledge required, and a lot of pressure.
One of the hardest parts of managing is people-leadership – and it is more important now than ever.
Employees – particularly good employees – are hard to find these days – particularly in the area of customer service. You don’t want to give them a reason to look elsewhere for employment.
In our Service Leadership courses, we often have interesting discussions on specific things that drive employees crazy. Here are two of them
1. Don't throw your employees under the bus
Two people walk into a restaurant to celebrate their first anniversary. When they arrive, the manager looks at the reservation list and says she’s sorry, but their name isn’t there.
The couple gets upset and explains that they made the reservation three weeks earlier with an employee named Lori. Lori had apparently told them the restaurant was fully booked but that she would find a way to squeeze them in.
The manager begins looking around the restaurant for Lori.
Finally, she says in a loud voice, “Well, she should know better than to do that. We can’t just ‘squeeze people in.’ I don’t know why she doesn’t think.”
One of the guests glances at the reservation sheet, and points to an empty space. “Gee,” she says, “It looks like there’s an opening in half an hour. Can we take that one?”
The manager looks at the sheet, nods and says, “Oh, it looks like Lori got lucky…”
A rule managers should live by
Publicly criticizing an employee in front of a customer serves no useful purpose. It doesn’t solve the problem. It doesn’t make the customer feel better. And it certainly doesn’t make the manager look good.
In fact, here’s a rule for managers to live by:
At no time, in no place, in the history of the universe, has throwing an employee under the bus ever served a positive purpose.
That should be written in giant, thick red ink on every manager’s list of things never to do.
There was a better response
The better response is simple:
“I am so sorry. Something clearly fell through the cracks. Let me see what I can do.”
Had the manager started by looking for a solution instead of looking for someone to blame, she would have noticed the opening half an hour later. The couple would have felt looked after, and an uncomfortable situation could have been avoided.
#2 Don't do employees' jobs for them
Sam needs Jennifer, a new employee, to enter an order into the system. He notices that she’s struggling.
“Never mind,” he says, “I’ll do it” – then pushes her aside, takes over her computer and enters the order himself.
Sam may believe he has saved three or four minutes. In reality, he has missed an opportunity to do one of the most important parts of his job.
This is really an unproductive response
This is a case of a manager who thinks that saving 3 or 4 minutes doing somebody else’s job is somehow productive.
It’s not.
One of the core responsibilities of managers is to assist and encourage employees to develop the skills they need to succeed. Not only did Sam not help his employee improve her skills, he also demotivated her by making her feel kind of useless
Here's a better approach
A better response would have been something like:
“This part can be a little tricky. Would you like me to walk you through it?”
It may still take three or four minutes. But those minutes will begin paying dividends almost immediately. Anna will be more capable the next time. She will also feel more confident and more valued.
