Employer Columnist
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Your people want something, but they don’t ask.
Yes, that’s right, some people expect you to be mind readers. Some of your employees expect you, especially HR professionals to take care of their welfare, their wellbeing, and their challenges at work, help them hire perfect people and train their people to become dream employees.All this, without your people going through the inconvenience of opening their mouths. Mind reading may as well have gone into your job description.
This is especially a challenge in Malaysia because as kids, we were thought to sit down, shut up and listen to the teacher. Any hint of disobedient, questioning behavior and you are sent into the back of the class and embarrassed. This is very different compared to someplace like Australia. When I was there for my civil engineering career, I was shocked by the amount of creative juices going around a class, any class. Hands fly up, students are vocal and teachers welcome being imperfect and put into a spot. Over in Australia, a common man sweeping the streets may approach the prime minister and have a man to man talk. Over here, we tend to be more subservient, we are afraid to open our mouths.Our inability to ask gives us a disadvantage as kids and as we grow up, this inability becomes disastrous. As human beings we all have different wants and needs and unless these wants and needs are reasonably satisfied, we become irritable and unhappy. Being irritable and unhappy for short periods in time is fine but what if it lasts for years? Do you have the employee who has worked for you for years but is seething inside, fueling office politics with their endless gossiping and fellow worker jibing?
All of us have problems, most of which are easily solved with the right resources. Obtaining resources is simple, they can come from books or other visual, auditory media or from other people. Many successful people have mentors because they know that other people are an invaluable resource in solving any problems and overcoming any challenges. However, unlike books or the internet, assistance from people can only come if asked. So asking is a skill that is truly life changing. Question is, how do you get your people to become more vocal?The first answer to this is quite a reversal. YOU ASK FIRST! Yes that’s right, although people think that you are a mind reader, in most cases you are probably not. Go ask them for what they need. Go ask them for what makes them happy or if they are happy at all. Go ask them if they like their seat in the office. Go ask them if they can get along with their team mates. Go ask them how is their family. Go ask them for their hobbies. Go ask and ask and ask and ask. Ask until you get the answers you need for you to do a great job. The wonderful thing about human nature is our monkey see, monkey do behavior. If you ask enough questions, they in turn will begin asking.
The second answer lies in self esteem. Our inability to ask lies in fear. Fear in reprisals, fear of the unknown answer, fear of getting brushed off, fear of not getting listened to. If self esteem is lacking, then overcoming this fear is difficult. Notice that people with self confidence rarely have a challenge with asking because they have associated ‘taking action’ with ‘overcoming fear’. There are two ways to overcome problems associated with employee self esteem or the lack thereof.The first way is to be open, very open. Openness means we have to look human, to stop being the almighty HR person and to start being honest about our own challenges, our own shortcomings and our own fears. Once you look and feel like someone your employees can relate to, the floodgates from the ‘river of asking’ opens.
The second way to overcome a lack in employee self esteem is to assist them in their development of self esteem. Self esteem is the conversations we have in our heads, be it automatic (subconscious) of manual (conscious). The key is to work with both the conscious and subconscious. How? Well, I guess that’s where trainers in the field of personal peak performance come in. International trainers like T Harv Eker and Anthony Robbins are masters in this field and they have spawn numerous offspring in the shape of local trainers dealing in some forms of NLP.Here are some titles that I will ask you to read: -
- Beyond Positive Thinking – Dr. Robert Anthony
- Awaken The Giant Within – Anthony Robbins
- Nonviolent Communication – Marshall Rosenberg
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Written by Edmond Yap Education Republic www.edurepublic.com |
Edmond is a qualified civil engineer who has been working in the engineering field for 5 years. Switching career in motivational speaking and training, he was the performance consultant at the Malaysian chapter of Dale Carnegie Training. His love of motivating and inspiring people prompted him to starting up Education Republic with a few others.
He can be reached at edmond@edurepublic.com
