First, the manager needs to know the criteria behind this assessment. Some points
are evident: letting the conversation partner talk uninterrupted, actively listening,
and showing respect for the opinions of others. Questions regarding these issues
asked by the manager are: What is important for the cooperation in teams? What
must be done in order to achieve a common goal as quickly as possible? What is the
role of your group leader? How is a typical team meeting conducted? What do you
like more and what less? An important note: be sure that you move from general to
more specific questions. Only in this way can you proceed in a goal-oriented and
solution-oriented way.
Finally, I would like to introduce the “Five Whys Principle” for the analysis of
management problems. If you as a manager only have a vague notion of what is
troubling your employees, you can use the “Five Whys” to find the reason for their
behavior. By sequentially asking five different “why” questions the causal chain
can be traced back to the true problem and real improvement can be achieved. Here
is an example of a boss and a subordinate manager who is responsible for a high
level of absence in his department:
Question 1: Why is the absence rate so high? Because the employees are dissatisfied
with their work. They have the impression that their absence is not noticed.
Question 2: Why are the people dissatisfied? The employees are not challenged and
they have the feeling that they are not given any responsibility for their tasks.
Question 3: Why do the people have no decision-making responsibilities? The
manager refuses to share responsibility and is also constantly interfering in the
employees’ tasks.
Question 4: Why is the manager interfering so much? Since the manager has had
bad experiences delegating decisions, he does not dare to give any responsibility
to the employees.
Question 5: Why did the manager have bad experiences delegating? Because he
was told to delegate tasks, but he was not given freedom of decision, the tasks
were poorly completed. In addition, the department head failed to adequately
inform his employees.
As a result, the manager’s boss determines that the high rate of absence is due to
the fact that there is no proper delegation.
4.2.2 Feedback Culture
Feedback – this is a buzzword used constantly in companies today. Apparently,
everyone constantly gives everyone else feedback. But closer inspection shows that
in most cases this “feedback” only consists of general assessments on the factual
level. For me, feedback is something else, as I would like to briefly discuss below.
In cooperation based on trust, the partners understand and accept one another –
and ideally even support and encourage each other. Whether or not this succeeds
depends largely on how each perceives the other party’s behavior and how the two
4.2 Tools as Means to an End 213