‘What could I do to make your job easier?’
It’s a simple enough question, so what stops you asking it?
Are you afraid that the people who work for you might come up with demands you could never fulfil?
Or is there a voice in your mind that insists that ‘work’ is meant to be a burden?
The following might help.
- How would you feel if your own boss asked you this question? I suggest you’d be pleased; you might even take it as a challenge to come up with ideas for improving the way you work.
- How good is your relationship with your reports and how well do you communicate with them? If your connection with the people who work for you is so weak that you wouldn’t dare to ask a question like this, then there’s something fundamental you need to address.
- Would you choose (a) to have your reports working in the same way they’ve always worked, nose to the grindstone and resigned to the fact that nothing’s going to change, or (b) to have a flow of information upwards from staff who are engaged in what they’re doing and on the lookout for how they could improve?
To put the previous question a different way, do you want your team to work hard or do you want it to be productive?