Ok Here’s the ugly truth: Managing People is probably one of the most challenging aspects of management you may ever encounter… For some reason, so many people think it’s an easy task ” to boss around “, but in fact it’s a very hard & demanding work, and requires so many skills that often take years to develop.

When I first became a General manager at 25 years old, I thought that dealing with employees should be something easy and fun. I was so wrong in the “easy” part. You see human behavior is unpredictable on daily basis; therefore it’s not a task to be taken lightly or even differed to later.

Here’s couple of advice that would help you out in your daily  routine as a manager:

1- Manage Agreements Not People: That rule is so widely applied that so many of us forgot it was even there;

• When you start a new job, you sign a contract with a job description and clear points to respect from both parties
• When you hire a contractor or even a carpenter to do your living room, you set clear expectations from time and cost etc..
• When you make a “Deal” with someone, give a promise, etc…

In Management, all you need to do sometimes, is to separate your emotions from the other person with a clear written agreement on a specific task (it can even be a simple email between the two of you) that states the expectations from each of you and the deadlines to finish the task and all the details.

This way, you will start managing the details of the agreement and not the person!

2- Focus on the Action not the Person: When a child break something in the living room, lots of the time the mother or the father become very angry and start yelling “at” the child and he / she replies back with stuff like “I didn’t do it… It was not me… It’s not my fault…”

In the office, when someone makes a mistake, he or she will only be “defensive” about it, when they feel they are under “ATTACK”, and that impression is very easy to happen when the manager or supervisor puts the blame on the Person and not the Action. So it’s “YOUR Fault” vs “What You DID!”

Going back to the child example; the right thing to be done in that case would be is to separate the Love of the parent from the disappointment of the act and a parent can say: “You’re my Son and I still love you very much, but what you just did made me disappointed from your action. I have higher expectations from you. ”

You can mix & match the 2 tips and do the adjustment on your management style and soon enough you will see the difference happening!

Have a great week!

SC

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project