Success impulse: How managers educate their people to take less responsibility
Managers want to hand over responsibility, but seem to fail again and again in this endeavor. Volkmar Völzke explains why this is the case and provides an impetus for success in the form of three practical tips.
I encounter this question all the time: "How can I get my people to take more responsibility?" The meaning is clear: when someone takes full responsibility, there is no blame, things get done faster, I can always rely on the other person, and so on. It is true that most people are happy to take on responsibility. It's just that it's constantly being taken away from them, even by their manager.
It's a lot like motivation: most people are motivated. They are only demotivated by others again and again, especially by their boss. So the critical question is: What are you doing to take responsibility away from your people without realizing it? Here are three key behaviors of how you train others to be irresponsible without noticing (and what you can do about it):
1. too many instructions
Rules, processes and instructions have their purpose. But at the same time, they reduce the sense of responsibility. Because not i have made this or that decision. But it was the process or the instruction!
It is better than defining rules and processes centrally to let those responsible work out the best ways together. The rule here is: as simple as possible for the majority of important activities. I often see that 80 percent of the effort is spent on the 3 percent exceptions.
2. know everything better
Every time you make the other person understand that you know something better or can still contribute something to his or her work results ("Why don't you do this and that?"), you take responsibility away from the other person. After all, the idea came from you, not from the other person.
Therefore: Accept results, even if you could do a little better. Your goal must be to increase the sense of responsibility, not to perform sham optimization for ego reasons.
3. not listening
By not listening well, you are giving the other person to understand that what they are saying is not important. So the other person will automatically take less responsibility. Because just: After all, it's not important.
Tip: Listen and ask questions, even if the problem doesn't seem that important to you. By asking good, open questions, you can develop the other person's thinking enormously so that they can take on more responsibility.
These three ideas require changing the manager's beliefs and behaviors. And therein lies the challenge. But it is worth it.
To the author:
Volkmar Völzke is a success maximizer. Book author. Consultant. Coach. Speaker. www.volkmarvoelzke.ch
