Hundred Tips for a Better Management (Aga Khan Foundation, 1993, 70 p.) Communicating with your staff The most important words 56. To be successful, get out with the workers and pick up information46 57. Refuse not to be informed47 58. The right hand must know what the left is doing48

Hundred Tips for a Better Management (Aga Khan Foundation, 1993, 70 p.)

Communicating with your staff

The most important words

The five most important words are:	I am proud of you
The four most important words are:	What is your opinion?
The three most important words are:	If you please
The two most important words are:	Thank you
The one most important word is:	You

(Anonymous)

56. To be successful, get out with the workers and pick up information46

Managers who don' t make the effort to know what is happening with their staff and who don't interact with others unless they have to, seen as managers who are inaccessible and often out of touch with the organisation and its people.

Frequent and direct communication with your fellow workers, both in the office and the field, allows you to find out what is and isn't working, how people feel about their work, how they go about doing what they do. It may help you to identify problems before they occur or before they become worse.

You don't always need to conduct a meeting to get information. You can accomplish this informally and effectively in the following ways:

• Make a point of walking around the office once a day to talk to employees.

• Have an occasional lunch with your staff. Use the time to get to know people, catch up on news, discuss some ideas.

• Don't limit yourself to talks with higher level staff; it may be that other workers are more aware of a particular problem and can do more to help resolve it.

57. Refuse not to be informed47

Information is important because it is crucial to evaluation, monitoring, measuring improvement, performance and achievement, among other things. So the success of these activities is directly related to the quality of our information.

Think as simply and directly as possible about what you are doing and why, and what information will help you achieve it. One of the manager's goals is to get information, evaluate whether it is critical and helpful to get the job done, and then get people to use it.

Information should be two-way. Get it from the right people in a timely manner and give it back to people in a form they can use.

58. The right hand must know what the left is doing48

Duplicated efforts are wasted ones. Know what your staff is doing, what their needs are. Bring people and a variety of ideas together; neither work well in isolation. Co-ordinated efforts can save time and money. Teamwork strengthens employee relations.

To co-ordinate work and people so things run smoothly use a check-list to establish:

• What is to be done
• Where this action will take place
• When this action will take place
• Which equipment is needed
• How it will be arranged
• Who will take part
• Who will do what