ALMA E-News for January 2003
Greetings ALMA Members,
As the leader of your laboratory safety program, it is important that you clearly communicate your philosophies, expectations, and personal commitment to providing a safe work environment. When this message is delivered in an ad hoc manner using different words on each occasion, the staff may be left with only a vague notion of where you stand maybe no more than an acknowledgement that you support safety. You can build a much stronger position by delivering a consistent, positive message that leaves no doubt where you stand on each occasion. A good technique is to take the time to write-out and memorize a four to six sentence statement expressing your safety position and use these same phrases when addressing the group or in one-on-one conversations. After hearing your speech a few times, the staff will know in advance what you are going to say and may even be able to recite the words along with you. You have then succeeded in clearly communicating your position so that everyone knows exactly where you stand.
As managers, we try to inspire or “motivate” our staff to behave in accordance with our vision of how their job should be done—and, are continually frustrated when they fail to see the logic of unquestioningly following our advice. “I’ve told him what needs to be done. Why can’t he just do it?“ is a common refrain. A recent article (“How to Motivate Your Problem People”, HBR, January, 2003) sheds insight on this problem and maintains that you can’t change people’s character and can’t even control their actions most of the time. It suggests that you will be more successful if you are willing to switch from your predetermined solution to an array of possible outcomes. The author suggests a one-on-one meeting with the recalcitrant employee to determine the obstacles to better performance and to identify possible solutions that might be more acceptable—a critical element to the success of this meeting is to elicit contrary views. The manager must resist the temptation to bury the employee under the weight of evidence and data supporting his/her position and to draw out the employee’s perceptions that give rise to the real consequences that are a problem. A key point is to resolve the problem one way or another—one of the most common complaints about managers is their failure to deal with problem employees.
If you have any comments, cost saving suggestions, opinions, etc. let me hear from you .
Wayne