{"id":2204,"date":"2015-02-12T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2204"},"modified":"2025-05-06T13:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T20:42:13","slug":"do-you-tell-your-direct-reports-how-to-do-a-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2204","title":{"rendered":"Do you tell your direct reports HOW to do a job?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless your job is to teach, attempting to tell your direct reports HOW to do the job you’ve asked or ordered them to do will be a disincentive, will remove some of the authority you’ve delegated, and definitely reduce their motivation to act and lead.<\/p>\n

Think for a moment of sometime in the past where someone directed you to do a job, then launched into a lengthy explanation of how you should do it.\u00a0 How did you feel at that moment?\u00a0 I\u2019d bet that you were either silently or openly angered that the person assumed that you didn’t know how to do a job even before asking if you did.\u00a0 This has been true since we were kids, and dad told us to rake the leaves, and then launched into an \"Managing_force\"<\/a>explanation of what tools to use and how to do the job.\u00a0 If that happened to you in some form over the years, I\u2019ll bet you pushed back immediately with something like \u201cI know how to do that, Dad.\u201d\u00a0 You felt diminished by dad\u2019s assumption that you didn\u2019t know how to do the job.<\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]<\/em><\/span> \u00a0The same is true in business, even if there is less drama and far less confrontation exhibited by the respondent.\u00a0 It is perfectly logical for that person to ask for help, or to a lesser extent to immediately offer it without a request.\u00a0 But it is a grand disincentive and personal affront to force upon a respondent a short lecture on how to do a job without being asked.<\/p>\n

Most of us would think that it is just good management to provide another tool \u2013 teaching how to complete the task when asking for it to be done.\u00a0 Not true. Remember dad\u2019s doing that to you years ago.<\/p>\n

It is a lesson in understanding human pride and dignity.\u00a0 Don\u2019t include \u201chow\u201d when you tell a person \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201cwhy,\u201d unless they ask for help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless your job is to teach, attempting to tell your direct reports HOW to do the job you’ve asked or ordered them to do will be a disincentive, will remove some of the authority you’ve delegated, and definitely reduce their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-surrounding-yourself-with-talent"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5772,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/5772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}