{"id":990,"date":"2011-12-05T01:37:05","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T06:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/?p=990"},"modified":"2011-11-18T09:53:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T14:53:54","slug":"information-pull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/2011\/12\/information-pull\/","title":{"rendered":"Information Pull"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n

As a manager, when an employee provides short, pleasing answers sound all the alarms you have. Ask more questions until you pull usable information from the employee.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manager<\/strong>: How are things going?<\/p>\n

Employee<\/strong>: Fine, okay.<\/p>\n

Manager<\/strong>: (thinks to herself) Great! I’ve communicated with the employee, and we are good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gosh. How many times have you seen this? What does “fine, okay” mean? Train wreck coming, so move the innocent bystanders way back.<\/p>\n

Manager<\/strong>: How are things going?<\/p>\n

Employee<\/strong>: Fine, okay.<\/p>\n

Manager<\/strong>: Glad to hear that. Now,<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Tell me three things you can measure that indicate things are going well.<\/li>\n
  2. Tell me three things you cannot measure, but give you a feeling things are going well.<\/li>\n
  3. Tell me two things you can measure that indicate things might go badly in the future.<\/li>\n
  4. Tell me two things you cannot measure, but give you a feeling things might go badly in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Gee whiz, the manager is being sort of tough in this second conversation. Why is she prying so much?<\/p>\n

    This second example is about the manager pulling <\/em>information from the employee. “Fine, okay” is not an acceptable answer. Hence, the manager asks and asks and asks until she receives information she can use.<\/p>\n

    One of the major reasons the manager needs to pull <\/em>information from the employee is placating<\/em>. The employee wants to be nice. This problem exists particularly in volunteer organizations. I want to help; I want to be positive, so I give nice, positive answers. “Fine, okay” are nice, positive answers.<\/p>\n

    Placating <\/em>is when the employee lives by the creed “you are everything while I am nothing.” Hence, I will provide you with the answer you want to hear, i.e., everything is fine.<\/p>\n

    If you are a manager, expect employees to placate. Expect employees to give you the answer that they think you want to hear. If you hear a pleasing answer, resist the temptation to smile and go on your merry way.<\/p>\n

    Pleasing answers should cause bright red lights to flash and big horns to blast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Dig into pleasing answers. Ask, ask, ask, pull, pull, pull. You will probably feel much better later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Dwayne Phillips As a manager, when an employee provides short, pleasing answers sound all the alarms you have. Ask more questions until you pull usable information from the employee. Manager: How are things going? Employee: Fine, okay. Manager: (thinks to herself) Great! I’ve communicated with the employee, and we are good. Gosh. How many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,9],"tags":[154,132],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-management","tag-communication","tag-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":991,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}