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Submitted by BJ_Marshall on
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Please forgive me if this post seems gloating, but I'm on Cloud Nine right now.

[b]BLUF: [/b]M&M say: If you don't develop good relationships with your people, don't expect to get that last 10% of productivity out of them. I want to take that one step further. As people with whom you develop good relationship talk to other people about the good relationship you share, your influence spreads even further.

One of my staff (she's actually temporarily assigned to me via a Job Rotation) is a high-S that is under the weather. I can't force people to take leave, but HR tells me I can at least mention the option.

So, I talked to her in her native S-language. I mentioned the concerns of the team when others came to work sick in the past (like being contagious), and I told her I would accept any request for sick leave with no questions. I also told her that, despite a looming deadline, I'm sure we could make it work if she wanted to take the rest of the day off. (It's honestly not THAT big of a deadline, but I still want to instill that sense of urgency. 8) ).

She just came to me five minutes ago to say how absolutely wonderful my approach with her was. Never in her career - and she's been here about 20 years - has she had a supervisor put concern for a direct over work like that. She said that, after I approached her, her "heart felt full" and she had to walk around. She then told me she talked to two of my coworkers praising how I handled the situation.

It's not just that I might get more productivity from my high-S direct because I spoke her language, but now two of her coworkers (not on my direct staff) might have a little more esteem for me, as well. I work on teams with them, so that works out very nicely for me.

This was my WOW moment for the day.

Thanks for reading,
BJ

rwwh's picture
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Nice story.

Sad side of the story is that in 3 days you will have 2 more people with a cold.... ;-)

WillDuke's picture
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Great story. And good for you. You got to show a little humanity and kindness. The person you showed it to appreciated it and spread the word. Maybe other people will follow suit.

What a terrific place for everyone to be able to spend so much of their time. Good for you, and good for your team.