Last Sunday, in Frankfurt, Germany, I took part in a guided walking tour of the city.
Our group included a young professional from Australia in his early 20s. He has taken leave from work to travel, backpacking across Europe.
We had an opportunity to chat over lunch and a local “apfelwein” (hard cider). He lamented his frustrations at work.
He said, “My boss thinks he is giving clear direction to us. Then we do the work our best way… only to be criticized for not understanding the direction.”
He feels criticized, not coached. He was wondering if it's normal to feel frustrated about this. I told him it was.
Ideally, managers would give clear direction. If the direction isn't clear (or even if it seems clear), employees should feel a level of “psychological safety” that allows them to ask questions (or even challenge things) without fear of punishment.
Ideally, managers would coach their employees along the way — helping them — instead of just judging them after the fact (or, worse, in an annual review).
The lessons that the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught about these things many decades ago still ring true. And many of these workplace examples seem pretty universal.
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I am currently learning about the Lean Six Sigma process and found this article very interesting in the way it connects to the processes.
The issue of this young professional in regards to his frustrations with his boss connects directly to what Lean Six Sigma tries to address.
For instance, a core aspect to Lean Six Sigma is to minimize inefficiencies, which correlates to this article due to the unclear communication and expectations this manager has for their employees. Due to the manager’s unclear directions and expectations of their employees this then leads to continuously wasted time and work, which could completely be eliminated if the communication between the team improves with a better communication process.
A question that came to mind after reading this article is if there are certain strategies in your experience that managers have used to help build clear communication along with encouraging employees to not be afraid to ask or clarify their questions on tasks given to them?
Overall, I enjoyed this article and was reminded that Lean Six Sigma processes go further than just the manufacturing or production aspect of a business.
Thanks for reading and for your comment.
I think the gold standard for training effectively is the “Training Within Industry” model that I’ve written and podcasted about:
https://www.leanblog.org/?s=training+within+industry
When it comes to helping employees feel safe enough to ask questions or to ask for help, the guidelines from the realm of “psychological safety” are really helpful.
Leaders must:
1) Lead by example (admitting when they don’t know something, for example)
2) Encourage others to follow their lead and speak up
3) Reward people for speaking up instead of punishing them in some way.
https://www.leanblog.org/?s=psychological+safety+model+reward
Hope that helps!