This is how to get people to do what you say at the office

This is how to get people to do what you say at the officeThis is how to get people to do what you say at the officeAs anyone who has experienced a miscommunication at work knows all too well, giving instructions is not as easy as telling someone what to do. You tell an employee to do one thing, and they ended up doing something thats different. What went wrong? You thought you outlined your awesome plan well.Usually, mishaps between expectations and reality happen because the task was not communicated in a way the recipient could understand or follow. Learning to give good instructions goes beyond communicating the objective. It means providing guidance, direction, and kooperation along with the intended goal.Employees cannot get to your intended destination if you dont provide a map, if you dont tell them about the bumpy road along the way, and the shortcuts theyre allowed to take. Its a skill every employee - wherever you fall on the office ladder - needs.Heres how to do it rig ht.1) Make your expectations clearGiving an instruction means erring on the side of over-communication and explicitly stating your expectations of when, how, and why your instruction should be carried out.Spelling out your instruction means that you give deadlines with dates. Your as soon as possible may be different from someone elses. Spelling it out means providing examples of best practices and pitfalls to avoid.Spelling it out also means you anticipate the follow-up question because youve done your homework and have studied the players involved.Harvard Business Review says that work delegation begins with gauging an employees competence level The spectrum begins with doing the task for them, then progresses to teaching them how to ask questions and do the role themselves, and then graduates to your instruction becoming support and guidance because your employee is fully capable.If the manager giving you marching orders is not giving the level of guidance that you need, you shou ld ask for it. One lesson thats stayed with me is to ask a boss, Whats a surprise to you? in the early stages of our relationship. That way, I can do my job with a solid foundation of what problems to flag and avoid before they become real problems.2) Instruct like a coachThe coaches you see in sports arent just cheering their players on. Theyre watching the game and provide in-game feedback, so that mistakes dont turn into catastrophes. This coaching philosophy should be applied whenever you give an instruction at work.Talking like a coach is what managing expert Bruce Tulgan advises for workers. In his book, Its Okay to Be the Boss The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need, he advises managers to focus on specific instances of individual performance and give honest critiques of those performances, so that the process can improve. You say whats going well and whats not. You measure and document progress.Reminiscing of the demanding, successful coaches in hi s life, Tulgan said that this active coaching works because it not only makes expectations clear, it sets those expectations high. You remind them to be purposeful about every single detail. You help them build their skills one day at a time. From focusing, they learn focus itself, he writes.3) Make an order a dialogueWhen you tell an employee, Heres what I need from you, you also need to ask them, What do you need from me to do this?Giving an instruction means understanding the motivations and limitations of the person youre instructing. To gain this knowledge, you need to be in regular dialogue with this person.This ongoing dialogue is what Tulgan advises for workers. In his book, he writes that by checking in regularly, the stronger and more informed your judgments will be about what can be done and what cannot, what resources are necessary, what problems may occur, what expectations are reasonable, what goals and deadlines are sufficiently ambitious, and what counts as success v ersus failure.To make yourself heard and understood, you have to learn what language the employee is speaking, and recognize that the dialogue that works for one employee may not work for another. This constant monitoring and tuning of the people around you is how you turn a plan into a plan of action that will be followed.