Talking to Subordinates

a                Talking to your Subordinate or Direct

¨             What is the status of the marketing documents?

¨             How far along are you in your analysis?

¨             Are you almost done with the technical report?

¨             When are you going to finish the design plans?

¨             Can you give me a status on your progress so far?

¨             How is the reporting assignment going?

¨             When can you give me a working draft by?

¨             At the end of every week, can you send me a weekly status mail? I’ll email you a template you should follow. You should email it to me every Friday.

¨             I want you to send me a status report at the end of every week. You should include what you did for that week and what you plan on doing for the next week.

¨             Can you send me a weekly status report? If you haven’t done it before, let me know and I will send you a template to use.

b               Project Change

¨             I know you have been working on the database using excel, but we need to use SQL. Can you make the necessary changes?

¨             Hey Jackie, I reviewed your report and there are a couple areas you have to change. Can you double check the figures you provided in page 7, and provide a recommendation for step 3? I would appreciate it.

¨             John, when we are discussing something in meetings or small groups, I noticed that you don’t allow the other person to complete their sentences. I do appreciate your contributions, but I think you should always hear the other person out. Can you try to do that?

c                Deadline

¨             Here is your new project. You have two weeks to complete it. After you review the project, let me know if there will be any problems.

¨             You have until the end of this month to complete your assignment. It is critical that everyone completes on time.

¨             We have two more days to complete the test pass. If anyone cannot complete their portion on time, let me know as soon as possible.

¨             We are not required to send in our analysis until Wednesday, so you have a couple more days to complete it.

¨             Do you think you can finish the marketing report by Friday?

¨             Our deadline is fast approaching. I try to minimize weekend work, but we might have to work this Saturday if we do not finish on Friday.

d               Subordinate asking you Questions

¨             I’m not sure about that one. I think the information you are looking for is in a manual I saw in the file cabinet. Why don’t you check there?

¨             Do a search on Google and see if you can find the information there.

¨             I think Stacy will know the answer. She is very familiar with that topic.

¨             I’m not sure on the exact procedure, but if I were you, I would do the forth step before the third one.

¨             I don’t think we ever decided on a specific way. I think it might be better to do this before that.

e                Encouraging

¨             Hey James, I think you’re doing a great job and it is not going unnoticed.

¨             You’re doing great. Keep up the good work.

¨             I told my manager about your performance. He was quite impressed. Keep up the good work.

¨             I had a hard time on my first project too. Don’t let it get you down. I’m sure you will do better next time.

¨             It wasn’t as bad as you think. I also saw definite improvements so you shouldn’t give up.

¨             Your work has been pretty good, but I really think you can do better. You have potential and I hope you start trying a little harder.

f                 Reprimanding

¨             You have been late for work on a regular basis. You better start coming to work on time.

¨             This is your third warning. If you are late for work again, we will have to take more serious action on you. Is that understood?

¨             Being late for work once in a while is understandable. But there is no excuse to be coming in to work late every day. You better start coming in on time.

¨             The report was due last Friday. What’s going on?

¨             I was working on three other assignments. I just couldn’t finish them all.

¨             If you were not going to finish on time, at least you could have let me know. Regardless, you knew how important this project was and you knew about the due date. What am I going to do with you?

¨             You should have at least told me that you wouldn’t be able to finish. Then I could have asked Mary to finish it. This is very irresponsible of you. Is this going to be a continual problem in future projects?

g                Talking to Direct – Interactive Practice

¨             A: “John, are you going to complete the report on time?”
B: “I am confident that I will have it done by this Friday.”
A: “How far along are you?”
B: “I have completed the preliminary review, analyzed the data, and I am almost done writing the analytical review.”
A: “That’s great. It looks like you are ahead of schedule. When you are done, send it to me for review.”
B: “I’ll send it to you Friday morning. That should give you a day to review it.”
A: “That’s great. Keep up the good work.”

¨             A: “Can you give me an update on your assignments?”
B: “Yeah. I’m helping with the performance testing, I’ve met with the partners for the integration project, and I’m finishing up the documents on the internal tool.”
A: “That’s good. Can you start sending me a weekly report? That will help me keep track of your progress regularly.”
B: “No problem. Do you want it by the start of Monday, or do you want it Friday evening.”
A: “I’m probably not going to read it until Monday, so just send it to me by Monday morning.”
B: “What do you want me to include in the weekly report?”
A: “Include what you did for the week, what you’re going to do for the next week, and include any other issues you have.”
B: “I’ll start doing that this week.”
A: “Great. Thanks.”

A: “John, can I see you in my office?”
B: “I’ll be right over.”
A: “Have a seat… I’m concerned about your performance lately. Is there something I should know about?”
B: “I’ve been pretty occupied at home. I apologize for letting it affect work. I’ll definitely pay more attention.”
A: “I understand, but I’m still having to take some heat on your work. You have been late numerous times, your projects are not as detailed as it used to be, and you missed a deadline last week.”
B: “I am really sorry, and I won’t let it happen again. I understand that I have been underperforming, and I will step it up.”
A: “I hope so. I’ll explain it to the director. But I don’t know how much more he will tolerate. That’s all I had so you better go back to work.”
B: “Ok. I really will change things around. Thanks for understanding.”