Good managers
encourage workers

She began, "Whenever I consider social skills in organizations, I think of managers who are able to obtain cooperation from workers. If workers are able to make contributions, this will improve the workplace in many ways. Workers will feel that their input is valued. Their contributions should improve the quality of a company's products and services. When their contributions are implemented, workers feel a sense of accomplishment. But not every manager is good at encouraging workers to participate. I admire those managers who can."

Encouraging participation from workers is based on a number of social skills. The first is the ability to make workers feel comfortable about speaking up and making suggestions.

Many workers complain that, in the past, their contributions have been ignored. They carefully prepared some suggestions, make them known to management, and then heard nothing.

As a result, they are hesitant to speak up when one of their current managers asks for suggestions about workplace improvement.

Good managers, then, must communicate that suggestions are welcome. They must have developed an atmosphere of trust in their organizations so that workers are convinced they will not be punished if they make controversial suggestions.

In addition, managers must follow through on the suggestions and either implement them or explain why the suggestions cannot be used at the present time. Workers prefer being told why a suggestion cannot be used to being told nothing at all.

If workers are highly resistant to making suggestions, good managers can engage in a series of steps that often lead to increases in idea sharing.

First, managers call workers together and ask them to discuss aspects of their jobs that seem to be going well. Most people are willing to discuss positive aspects of their work since they are not challenging authority and are not being asked to offer criticisms.

After carefully listening to worker contributions, managers then must make the judgment about whether or not people seem comfortable with the group discussion format. If not, then other non-threatening questions should be asked.

One such question is, "Are there things that our competition is doing that seem to be successful for them?" Workers may be willing to discuss the competition's advertising or promotional campaigns without feeling that they are criticizing the management of their own organization.

Once managers make the judgment that workers are comfortable with this group participation, they can ask more difficult questions.

One is, "What aspects of your current work are difficult?" After collecting answers, the next question can be, "What are ways of decreasing these difficulties and making things easier for you?"

Answers to these questions should lead to the formation of goals for workplace improvement and to ways of attaining these goals.

I have seen tremendous amounts of money wasted when managers bring in outside consultants who are supposed to make suggestions about improvement. Workers often know more about the details of making products and delivering services than do managers or hit and run consultants.

When managers solicit and use suggestions provided by workers, they are taking advantage of expertise that is too often underutilized.