Open communication can help you manage others

Early morning meetings with your team can help review plans for the day, while end of the day meetings will discuss observations and progress. FILE 

By DR FRANK NJENGA

Q: I am a team leader in a retail chain store in Nairobi, but I am concerned about the behaviour of some of my team players. They are overzealous and often overstep their
mandate and play roles they are not meant to. 

I must admit that this kind of proactivity has at times helped save situations, especially when I’m overwhelmed by other tasks. However, how do I tame without injuring their enthusiasm for work?”

Your question relates to the act of balancing the good and the bad that comes into evidence when dealing with human beings. At times a human trait can be good and beneficial and at other times the same attribute can be counterproductive.

In your work situation, it sounds like some team members are good at taking over some tasks from you when you are busy, but at other times they do not know when to stop. For example, they get in the way of customers perhaps by pushing them too far to the point of upsetting them.

At its most basic level, your problem is fairly simple, and all you have to do is call your team together and voice your concerns. You might be surprised at how simple the problem becomes.

More often than not, young members of your team might be unaware of the effect of their behaviour on business, and they might (perhaps rightly) blame you for not having told them earlier.

If that be the outcome, then all you have to do is put in place rules about who may or may not do certain things. You might also get team members to put in place a monitoring system where they check on each other on a regular basis.

A simple well-tested method is to have either early morning meetings with the team to review plans for the day, or end of the day meetings where peers discuss their observations and each member has the opportunity to correct and thus help the other.

You might surprise yourself at how effective you become in problem solving when you open channels of communication.

A few years ago we were called upon to help a medium-sized company where employees had gone on an illegal strike, locking themselves in the factory and refusing to let the managing director enter the premises.

They were threatening to burn the factory if the company chairman (and majority shareholder) did not address them. When the chairman arrived, they let him in and their demands were simple, sensible and would later to lead to improved productivity.

They explained to the chairman that they had been asking for improved health and safety measures. They wanted to be provided with safety gear, helmets, aprons and in some cases gloves and boots. They also wanted improved lighting, training in fire fighting and first aid as well as a programme on health and safety, with particular regard to HIV/Aids. No demand was made with respect to salary.

The chairman was shocked by the reasonable nature of the demands and wanted to know why management had failed to either provide increased health and safety measures or at worst bring the matter to the board.

The MD was put to task later and he blamed the union. He explained to the board that the union “fellow” had approached the matter in a “bad” way and he had decided to teach the workforce a lesson by not giving in to their demands.

This was a classic case of shooting a messenger because you do not like him despite the fact that the messenger was the bearer of good and useful news.