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Six Rules for Successful Staff Management
If you manage people, or wish to manage people, you must deal with staff problems every day. "How should I treat Jenny when she gives me the silent treatment?" "What should I do about this conflict between Steve and Pete?" "How should I respond when people want favors from me?"
If you use the following rules for managing people, you will be a better manager. They will guide you in difficult situations. They help you build trust and cooperation.
If you are not yet a manager of people, you soon will be one, IF you follow these rules whenever you can.
An article by L. Ron Hubbard called "How to Fill Jobs" outlines seventeen rules. Here are the first six.
1. Do not expect to improve your status or popularity with your staff members by giving them raises. You improve your status by doing your job and actively leading your group.
For example, one of your employees says, "Come on Boss, I really need that raise. I'll be loyal to you and make sure everyone likes you, if you give me the raise. Okay?"
You say, "Sorry Jed. No raise. Maybe if you improve your productivity for a few months we can discuss it. Let's get to work on that project as we're already behind."
2. Do not pull people off their jobs. It makes them feel insecure. They get the idea you have partially fired them and so they quit.
For example, you decide to answer the phone whenever you hear it ring. Your receptionist only gets to answer the phone when you are busy. Soon, the other employees start to answer phone calls whenever you are busy. Your receptionist quits.
3. You can make people work very hard as long as they are doing the job they were hired to do.
For example, your computer system crashes and 5000 records need to be entered by your data-entry staff before they can do their normal data-entry work. Because they were hired to do data entry, you say, "I know this will be hard, but you people need to get these 5000 records entered by the end of the day, even if you need to work all night. And then by the end of tomorrow, you need to catch up your regular work, as well."
The data-entry staff grumble a bit, but soon they are working harder than ever. They laugh about having pizza for dinner and make up a game to finish before 7 pm.
4. Pay attention to your staff's work. Make regular comments about their performance.
For instance, you say, "Good job on getting those 5000 records entered by 7 pm! You seem to do your best work when you eat pizza."
5. Do not play favorites with any particular staff members or form cliques.
For instance, someone says, "Boss, a few of us want to buy you dinner tonight."
You say, "No thanks, but maybe we'll have a pizza party for lunch on Friday for everyone."
6. Demand excellent work standards.
For example, one of your staff says, "I'm mailing these statements even though they are a little crooked. The printer messed up, but you can still read them."
You say, "Throw them away and do it right. We're professionals, okay?"
L. Ron Hubbard summarizes with this advice: "If you do all these fairly well, you'll really make it. You only have to be 51% right all the time to win. Just make sure the 49% loses don't include anything important."
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