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Birthe Mester, managing director business development at the Centre for High Performance Development, offers some advice. We’ve all had them, those people at work who are constantly demanding your time and energy. Just when you’re trying to get on with some work, they’re in your office, they copy you into all their emails or they’re on the phone every five minutes. So how can you reduce the time you spend dealing with high maintenance staff?
The first imperative is to understand the reasons why someone is demanding so much of your time. Usually, it’s a deep-seated insecurity that can manifest itself in one of three ways:
1. They’re trying to impress you
2. They don’t know what they need to do and have to keep checking with you
3. They want reassurance that what they’re doing is right
The best way to understand which of the three potential causes you’re dealing with is to sit down and have a chat with your high maintenance person. Once you’ve identified the cause, here are Birthe’s top tips on solving the problem:
1. If they’re trying to impress you, then reassure them that they are adding value and explain that you don’t need to be cc’d on everything and that you trust them to do their job. This cause can be one of the hardest to deal with and it may take several sessions explaining the above to affect a change in behaviour, but it’s worth persevering.
2. If they don’t know what they need to do, then it’s a question of identifying what skills are missing and how you can help build them. This could mean training courses, coaching or buddying them up with someone who can work closely with them to build up the skills on the job. The best option for you will depend on the exact need.
3. If the person is looking for reassurance, then you should consider coaching that person yourself or getting a coach to help them. Often they’ll be coming to you for reassurance that they’re making the right decision - they might have had a control-freak for a boss before you and are simply reflecting that experience.
You can help them improve their decision making by gradually loosening the ‘apron strings’. Go through a ten-step process for a project and together identify which steps your employee should come to you about and which they shouldn’t. As they grow in confidence you can reduce the ‘checking points’. For example you might agree that the employee only needs to get you to authorise a quote rather than approve the tender list as well. You can help this person further by booking meetings in advance to show that you’re committed to them; but only do this if the person is a direct report of yours, otherwise refer on to the person’s line manager and make sure they instigate a similar process.
Birthe Mester is the managing director of business development at the Centre for High Performance Development, offers some advice.
For more information on coaching, visit www.chpd.com/whatwedo/coaching
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