How to train key employees (1)

1. Quickly and accurately convey instructions:

As leaders, we must know that one of the essential qualities of key employees is to do a good job in conveying instructions accurately, and there must be no mistakes.

For example, a key employee of your subordinate gets a certain instruction from you, and then communicates this instruction to the relevant personnel in the parallel coordination department or other responsible colleagues in the department. There must not be any problems in this process, and must not be allowed to The party who got the information turned around and asked, "Why didn't you tell me completely at that time?" Quickly and accurately conveying instructions is one of the principles and essential qualities that a company's backbone employees must abide by.

Some people may ask, is it really that important to convey instructions quickly and accurately?

Communicating wrong instructions can sometimes put a job in a dilemma due to wrong information or waste the resources that have been prepared with great difficulty, which will bring losses to the company; for customers, if you convey company instructions to customers Mistakes are likely to make customers angry and make customers question the company's credibility.

For example, in a situation I once encountered at work, the boss held a meeting with a certain investment manager D outside, and let D, who returned to the company first after the meeting, tell it to an analyst A who did not attend the meeting and asked him to write a certain The professional report in the area will be used after three days, and the boss has explained that the relevant project information can be requested from a colleague C. The boss did not return to the company because of other meetings that day.

The next day, the boss asked about the progress of A’s work. As soon as A listened to it for three days, he had to use the report and immediately became anxious. When the boss asked, he realized that D only told the boss to ask for a report on a certain aspect when he told A, but did not inform him. The report will be used in two days, and the most hateful thing is that he did not tell A that the relevant information can be obtained from his colleague C. After receiving the notice, A wanted to confirm with the boss, but the boss did not return to the company for a day, if it weren't for the next day The boss intervened in a timely manner, and this report may be delayed. Due to the omission of information, the project report was almost delayed, and A also worked overtime overnight to get back the lost progress.

D's lack of rigor in delivering information almost led to adverse consequences. This case shows that, in addition to the content of the information delivered by D, there are also problems with timing. D did not inform A of the deadline for the report. may not be used as originally planned.

When the boss questioned D, D said that he did not take notes in time, and he was in a meeting outside at the time. The boss told him this instruction during the meeting, so he did not convey it to A at the first time. The two reasons caused the omission of the instruction.

It can be seen that the lack of timely communication is an important reason for the omission of instructions. If we want to make no mistakes in the transmission of instructions, we should abide by the principle of "timely, accurate, and no omissions":

"Timely" means that the recipient of the instruction will tell him immediately if he is there. If the recipient of the instruction is not there, then call the other party as soon as possible, or let the other party call you at what time, so that it will not appear. Miscommunication.

If you can't determine whether the other party is in a meeting or whether it is convenient to answer the phone when you receive an instruction, you can completely turn the instruction into text and send it to the other party through WeChat, and ask the other party to reply and confirm it to you as soon as possible. .

"Accurate, no omission" means to convey the instruction to the recipient of the information accurately and without omission.

So how do we help key subordinates develop the habit of conveying instructions in a "timely, accurate and without omission"?

Tips1: Leaders must lead by example, convey instructions to recipients in a timely, accurate and complete manner, and ensure that instruction information is conveyed in a timely and complete manner, and the influence of leaders must be exerted.

Tips2: We need to explain to all subordinates the importance of delivering instructions in a timely and accurate manner, and tell them the value of delivering instructions in a "timely, accurate, and without omission", when subordinates make mistakes in conveying instructions to customers or other departments , The leader should come to the door to apologize in person to show sincerity, and give a warning to the subordinates involved.

Tips3: Generally speaking, the chance of making mistakes in communication will be greatly reduced after being emphasized, but there will still be people who make such mistakes, and such people will naturally be distinguished from employees who can be the backbone.

2. Report bad news in a timely manner:

As leaders, we must know that another essential quality of key employees is the ability to report bad news in a timely manner.

Among the various matters reported to the superior leaders, some are good news and some are bad news: for example, you have successfully signed a contract with a client, and you finally broke through the annual goal, which belongs to the category of good news; Failure to sign contracts with customers at the "foot" stage, and customers wanting to delay payment due to their own cash flow problems, all fall into the category of bad news.

If you don’t have any feedback when your key subordinates report to you, the key subordinates will give priority to reporting “good news” to you and delay reporting “bad news” to you based on the mentality of “seeking benefits and avoiding disadvantages”. information".

As leaders and subordinates, we can all understand that as subordinates - we all want to see leaders nodding satisfied or full of affirmation when they hear good news, but don't want to see dark clouds when leaders hear bad news A dense face or a look of anger.

Therefore, if we do not tell subordinates what to do when they receive bad news, it is natural that good news will be reported to the leader in time, and bad news will be delayed in reporting.

In fact, at the level of company management, good news is only an inevitable result of the implementation of the plan. The company can implement the next step of the established work arrangement according to the plan step by step, while for bad news, the company is likely to take some unplanned response measures. If this bad news affects not only the work of this department, then if the report is delayed, it will bring a passive situation to other related departments, and the problem may be more difficult to solve.

For example, in our company regular meeting, you may think that the company regular meeting is mainly used by project leaders or responsible partners to show the boss the team's achievements. In fact, if you participate in our company regular meeting, you will find that each business team When reporting, only 20% are talking about the progress made by the team in the last week, and leaving 80% of the time to report the outstanding problems of the project, that is, the "bad news" and solutions that the team can think of. , What kind of resources and what kind of support at the company level is needed in the next step. I asked many new employees who participated in the company's regular meeting for the first time how they felt about our company's regular meeting. Their outstanding feeling was: "There is a huge amount of information, but also a lot of pressure."

I think our company's regular meeting eventually evolved into a "problem solution summary meeting" because our boss encouraged everyone to share the "bad news" as soon as possible. "Sharing bad news" is only the first step, but also The time demonstration of the solution use case meeting is shown to all employees. This is the most vivid and timely case teaching. Through such training, experience can be accumulated more quickly.

Although the boss has already learned about these "bad news" and the project team has taken action, after all, only a few direct participants are involved, and other business team members of the company have no way to share their experience. , Through the case dismantling of the "battle plan" that turned "bad news" into "good news" at the regular meeting, colleagues in other projects can also gain relevant experience, and the next time you encounter similar problems, you can know how to deal with it.

It is precisely because of our boss's attitude towards "bad news" that the company's attitude towards "bad news" is to inform the boss and team members as soon as possible, and share it at the company's regular meeting. If the team can't solve it, It is also possible to coordinate resources within the company and focus on solving problems.

No matter what kind of bad news is at the regular meeting, our boss is rarely angry and gloomy, but more like thinking, listening, or writing with his head down. His calm mood , In fact, it is also encouraging the team to report truthfully, not just reporting good news but not bad news.

We need to help key employees develop the habit of reporting bad news in a timely manner. If we confirm that one or several key employees are our key employees, we should tell key employees to "report in time" when they are the leaders at the first time. bad news” and help them develop the habit of reporting bad news in a timely manner.

Moreover, we need to control our emotions. We don’t want to be happy when we hear good news, and angry when we hear bad news. As a successful leader, we must set an example and be the first to receive bad news. Stand up and walk in front of your subordinates, find a solution to the problem together with your subordinates, and solve the problem as quickly as possible and within a controllable time.