Transcripts

Jeffrey J. Fox:
You have to have an ability to sell behavior change to the person that you manage.

Jeffrey Fox, author of the book, How To Become A Great Boss…

Great bosses work with the people to explain the what to do and why it's important. And the why is how they sell the person on the what. And then great bosses leave the how up to the people and that's the hard part because there are a lot of great bosses that think they have to do how as well. So, you show them the what and you explain why it's important and leave the how up to them. And that's a formula for a pretty good boss especially if you hire good people and that's the key.

To which many bosses would say whenever I let my employees figure out how to do things they screw it up.

Well, two things; one make sure you have the right people and two have you trained them? Have you given them the tools to do the job? I mean if you just let people go out and flounder that's what the poor boss does is they don't really spend a lot of time on the clear direction and so forth. And of course they blame the employee and not themselves.

What can any boss do to become more effective?

Well, the first thing I would be to talk to my people and ask them how things are going and then just listen. The great boss is willing to ask and listen. You know too many of them are too quick to talk and give the answers before the person even gets the words out of their mouth.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.