Managing people is the hardest, yet most underrated skill in the business world today. The ability to get people to not only listen and follow, but to think and execute.
Many have said skills are innate. Others believe in nurture over nature. I believe it's finding the language that your staff speaks. As individuals.
If you had five people - Italian, American, Russian, Chinese, Mexican, and you only spoke to them in English, would they all understand at the same level? When you talk to your employees it can be the same thing. Some are visual learners. Some prefer audio learning.
If I had a dollar for every time a CEO or business owner said to me:
"For what we pay them, they should know..."
"It isn't that hard, why can't they get it?"
I'd be a very rich man.
I ask owners why they can't have meetings with their staff. It isn't that hard. Given how much the owner makes, she or he should know how to communicate with their people. Empathy is a tough game.
In a conversation with a CEO recently, he was asking me about expectations of new people, and how they weren't understanding what to do. Knowing he has two kids, I asked him how they responded and behaved. His oldest was fairly obedient. Mellow and did what was asked. His second was rambunctious and needed to be told three times to do the same thing.
"Those kids grow up to be employees...."
I believe he had an aha moment.
As leaders and managers of people, our job is to continuously learn and grow; to figure out new ways to relate to staff. To become teachers. To step out of the box of conformity and identify how to exponentially get more from your team. First as individuals and then as a collaborative team.
I tell my staff every day: if management were easy, I wouldn't need them :). Managers get paid for the hard work.
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