Do Any Of These Employees Work For You?
Did you ever pause to realize that some people have a different definition for phrases they use, than the meaning the rest of the world relates to? For example, “Hey boss, I deserve a gold star, I almost made it to work on time today.” Or, “I almost had that report for you today like you asked, because I almost remembered to save it.” You can’t measure “Almost”. IKR
And then, as you look out across your staff, do you recognize the employee who “over participates” at staff meetings? You know who I’m talking about. The employee who shoots their hand in the air at Safety Meetings when the Presenter asks “What steps would you take if a fire broke out in this office?” And, they blurt out “Really big ones.”
Or, in the interview process, the candidate across from you goes into great detail as they tell you how much they disliked workdays when they had nothing to do…and the next day they had to finish what they did the day before.
If you are a hiring Manager and read a lot of applications, does it cause you to pause when the applicant’s answer written in the space for “Who to contact in case of an emergency?” is “A very good doctor.”
And be careful who “new hires” are allowed to talk to. Sometimes, the long of tenure employee can be a bad influence. For example, the new hire with a spirited smile, and fire in their eyes says “I want to soar with eagles.” To which the aforementioned long service employee says, “Maybe, but weasels rarely get sucked into jet engines. Just sayin’.”
As a newly appointed Manager called yet another staff meeting, the new Manager’s boss asked why he called so many meetings. Without missing a beat, the young Manager said, “I learned it from you. Any time you didn’t have anything to do, you called a meeting so you wouldn’t be the only one.”
And, along with the realization that there is no universally agreed upon yardstick for “almost”, as stated at the outset; I knew I had some “partial listeners” in a workshop after one participant misquoted Helen Keller by saying “Alone we can do so little, together we can do even less.” (You can look up Helen’s real quote.) OMG
And, to close, Ken Blanchard is quoted as having said, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” But, I have to admit there are some days I pause at that one. It depends on who is making up the “Us”. I could swear there have been times the “all” has gone downhill. Ever had one of those days?