Employees Problems and Full-Body Massage

This is test drive #3 announced in Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

What was in my practicing pipeline are:

• Collin’s “The day employees stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
• Leo’s “Give a full-body massage“.

Recently my good friend just used the same phrase with regards to employees and their problems, he said ”they just won’t bring you their problems anymore, so you sink slowly”.

I am looking back when I was team lead (today I am individual contributor and I do not have anybody to report to me). I recall that any time my team members were coming into my cubicle I used to put aside any work I was doing that time, disconnecting the phone and listening what they have to say. My approach was simple - if I listen and help them now I won’t be surprised afterwards. I earned trust among the team, and I had quite few surprises.

I can also reflect it to my little daughters - they are looking for my attention trying to tell their stories [==problems==] from kinder garden or from school. I know for sure if I do not listen to them now, no matter how tired I am, I will lose their trust so when they will grow up the train I missed will be far away…

Here is my practice:

I let people bring their problems, never compare theirs to mine. If I cannot help I try to encourage them by sharing my approach of The Mindset Of Failure

Leo, full-body massage never works!! At max, it gets to half-body quickly turning into greatest compliment I mentioned in Driven By Values, Sushi, And Great Sex :)