You have probably all heard about the three wise monkeys, a Japanese adage, embodying the proverbial principle ‘See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil.’ The three monkeys are
- Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering his eyes
- Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering his ears
- Iwazaru, who speaks no evil, covering his mouth
where they have been known since the 16th century; their statues are set at crossroads. There, their slogan is Mi-zaru, kika-zaru, iwa-zaru, ‘No seeing, no hearing, no speaking’, and it is used seriously to teach prudence and purity.
Coming back to my favourite subject, we can easily turn these three wise monkeys into three managers. What do I mean by this?
When it comes to observing our teams to ensure they perform the way they are expected to perform, we sometimes lack the discipline to do so. In this picture, the first monkey, or manager if you will, doesn’t see what their employees do, the second one doesn’t hear what their employees say, and the third manager, worse of all, hears and sees everything but chooses to say nothing. This really sends out a message that the manager can’t be bothered; so why should the employees?
So, why do you think we do not ‘see’ or ‘hear’ things? From my experience, the reasons are many:
- We are simply too busy
- We stop noticing things after some time
- We may not be sure of what we are looking for in the first place
- We may be unclear of what the standards are ourselves
- As a manager, we may think that this is not our top priority
- We may be walking around without being fully aware of our surroundings
- We may be tired, overworked and have many other things on our minds
- We perhaps, have lost some of our enthusiasm and are not feeling very engaged ourselves
And why don’t we sometimes say anything?
- We perhaps aren’t equipped with the skills to provide corrective coaching
- We may want to avoid confrontation or conflicts
- We may simply forget to say something because we were busy
- We may have meant to say something at the time, but something else came up and we forget
- Sometimes, it is just ‘easier’ to say nothing and move on to something else
- We perhaps, are demotivated ourselves or simply have stopped caring t
Whatever the reasons, we need to address the issues as things can only get worse. It is important to remember that,
If you don’t praise good performance, the employee will feel unvalued and demotivated, and it won’t be long before they leave. By the same token, if poor performance isn’t highlighted and rectified, the employee won’t necessarily know that they are not performing as expected and service will remain poor.
It is the responsibility of managers and supervisors to observe, assess and coach their teams in order to support and train them, so that they are equipped with the tools and skills to deliver great customer service consistently.
There are many benefits to the employee and to the manager, and also to the business. In our course for managers and team leaders, ‘Observing, Assessing & Recognising Your Teams’ we explore 14 of them; here are just a few:
The employee will
- Become more self-reliant
- Gain more job and life satisfaction
- Contribute more effectively to the team and the business
- Take greater responsibility and accountability for their actions and commitments
The business will
- See increased employee engagement
- Notice improvement in the individual performance
- Help motivate and empower individuals to excel
- Demonstrate its commitment as a business to People & Culture development
Observing and assessing people can be challenging, but there are simple steps and ways to learn the skills through self-learning and courses. Valentines Learning can help you with this; if you would like to find out how, contact us now.
And I’ll leave you with another quote, this time from Tim Fargo, author and keynote speaker
“Mistakes should be examined, learned from, and discarded; not dwelled upon and stored.”
