FREE online courses on Maximum Managing People - Dealing With People - Don t Give them Time to Think

 

To keep employees on a straight line path to success there is a need to keep them boxed into fulfilling your solutions. Under the oxymoron view, employees can be assigned tasks which are fulfilled. However as a manager in charge of multiple areas you must be able to achieve each objective within a specific time frame while also achieving a particular level of quality.

 

If you believe that superior performance will be forthcoming from your employee group, then give them independence of action. If they are willing to achieve the set objectives or numerical targets then they are entitled to benefit from greater responsibility.

 

But in order to call their own shots, they must bear a heightened sense of urgency about the tasks at hand. As is often the case, they do not and end up facing the manager's continuous barrage of questions, which are often hostile in nature. This helps to reassert management authority by displacing the views of the employee group with those of the manager.

 

This cat and mouse game is bound to go on as they slip up and you the manager reestablish the prime directive.

 

Throw a Bone, Yank it Back – A Game of Balance

 

If you are in the business game, windfall profits are usually generated by the home run. (An American baseball term used to describe the best outcome by a hitter) or the six in cricket.

 

However, to achieve this, you have to keep swinging the bat on the playing field of life. The problem is that your opponents can return the favor in which case you have to return it again with more aces up your sleeve. To do this you should know the following

 

-        Your strengths

-        Your temperament

-        Frame of mind

-        If pushed, your capabilities

 

By knowing these, your opponent can use any number of pitches, which are like tempting bones thrown to a dog. If you bite wrong, you lose time, money and energy. The result is that your reputation declines, damaging your internal credibility.

 

In serious games, a smart pitcher, who knows that he has to face you in the championship will save one great pitch to strike you out. Or in the game of cricket, to bowl you out. He will hide it, feign other weak pitches, then out of nowhere; up the velocity, bring it with heavy movement, right by you. This can be metaphorically used for advertising, technical expertise and engineering quality. You haven't seen this before, so your reaction time will be insufficient.