One of the joys of The Apprentice is always the interview show. Suddenly all the egos are cut down to size as Sugar drags in all his Bentley and aston Martin driving mates. Some fascinating facts come out and we all get to sit quietly and squirm and thank the lord that our own lives and achievements aren’t being pulled apart on national TV.
But the real joy of this program was watching Sugar do two things which help to highlight how astute he is.
1. The way that he reiterated the fact that three of them were going to go. He had told them initially but then simply and in a “I’m making this crystal clear” fashion told them all again. There was no dithering about and no doubt as to exactly what he was going to do.
2. The “Katie” situation. The fact that he kept reading her face and knew that something was wrong. And that he didn’t let it lie. Again he simply spoke up and said what he thought. He reiterated with “crystal clarity” how the job would work and the commitment she would have to make.
“Is that clear? I’ll repeat it again”
As part of my consultancy business I run a mentoring program for young managers. It’s always enlightening and to a very large extent they pretty much all suffer from the same problem – which is exactly the same problem I used to suffer from when I started managing people in my early twenties. i.e. not making your instructions crystal clear. I used to faff about and vaguely ask people to do stuff. But never make it really clear. I’d use stupid expressions like “What we need to do is…..” when what I needed to say is “What I want you to do by 9.00 a.m. tomorrow morning is…” And then I’d be shocked, indignant and cross when the task wasn’t done.
Part of the issue is that we allow people to manage at a very young age in this business. I was managing nearly thirty full and part time staff in a very busy bar in Poole when I was only 22. It would be fair to say that I had the clarity and assertiveness skills of a baboon. It was only later when I had my own business and realised that I wouldn’t have it much longer if I stayed vague that I truly grasped the concept of clarity.
Me – managing people in my twenties
I used to force myself to make it as clear as possible and then ask the member of staff to say back to me what it was that I wanted them to do. It felt awkward but it totally removed any ambiguity. I’m not as clumsy now but I still concentrate on making any instruction as clear and unambigous as possible. I also learnt the hard way to read people’s expressions just like Sugar did with Katie. Not through poring over silly “body language” books but through common sense and intuition.
These skills are so vital for our younger managers and yet they are so rarely taught. My business degree didn’t get close to teaching me this kind of thing and yet it would probably have been twenty times more important than some of the theoretical guff I was taught. Make sure your young managers are properly trained to manage people. Not just trained to tick boxes or rant and rave if things aren’t done according to the manual.
Another great post.
I learnt this the hard way too and agree that it is the major problem for young managers. Some of them think they’re being clear and assertive but they’re just being aggressive.