I’m Putting You In Charge Of

“I’m putting you in charge of the kitchen tonight”, spoken in a gentle voice, is what my wife will sometimes say as she is serving me a lovely dinner.  Beats the hell out of “Do the dishes and make sure you wipe the counters and stove.”

Would terminology like that be effective at work?  A restaurant manager who puts a line level employee “in charge” of ensuring garde manger preps properly tonight might get that person to perk up.  Do you have small tasks that others regularly accomplish yet could be presented with a sense of ownership?  Even if its just the fry station, or maintaining the coffee pot serving the reception area.  You might be surprised how often that kind of responsibility is then mentioned at home that night.

Vocabulary, and its effective use, are powerful tools in your arsenal.  But only if you have the skills and the mindset to use them. Here are three little nuggets you can use, courtesy of moi.

  1. As in a meeting. Not climbing a mountain.  Scheduling a summit on a macro topic and scheduling the summit soon gives it gravitas.  It makes it important.  Then then tell people to come prepared but don’t give too much detail.  Make them think big picture.  So you schedule a revenue summit, or a service summit, or a cost containment summit.  Tell the team to come prepared, come with ideas   And make it in like 3 days, so they have some time to prepare yet it looms.

At the summit, no matter how exhaustive their list of metrics or ideas, ask for more.  “What else can we do?”  Use that line.  “What other ideas do you have?”  Use that question too.

A few summits, properly placed, can bring intensity and focus to issues.  They are a great way to advance team priorities and to get everyone focused on team goals.

  1.   As in the overall sense of self you get from another person.  Does a candidate or client or colleague have a great storefront?  It measures looks I guess; handsome or pretty. That is hard to walk away from.  But it also incorporates body language, confidence, social skills, verbal presentation skills, attention to detail in one’s outfit.  Use the term storefront to describe one’s presence.  Storefront is a good word to incorporate into your vocabulary. Especially when hiring.  I never wanted to go backward on storefront.  I wanted each new hire to have a storefront as least as polished and poised as the predecessor.  I HATED going backward.
  1. The next term I got from an old boss; his assistant actually used it more often. The guy had an incredible focus on his calendar.  He was fanatical, and I don’t use that word as hyperbole, about his and my calendar.  Dude had plans for everyone.  Anyway, he would feather you into his calendar for a pop-up meeting.  His meetings tended to be brief but uber-frequent.  So he could feather in almost anything, yet the implications and inferences are great.

Let’s say a client wants to meet you at 3 on Thursday.  Hey, it’s a client- of course you are going to make it work. By indicating you will “feather” them in, you create illusions.  First, it creates a sense of vibrancy in your calendar; you have a robust schedule. You are busy!  Even if your calendar is clear. Secondly, it alerts the client that, irrespective of your busy schedule, you will make time for them.  They are important to you and as such you will modify and subjugate other tasks to address the client.  The occasional feathering in a calendar just seems so professional!

I’ll go over some phrases that seem a bit trite and overused, but before I move to that, let me resurrect the initial analogy, where Kathleen put me in charge of the kitchen.

Everyone needs to matter to feel fulfilled.  You want people to be fulfilled at work.  That is self evident.  So the more control they feel they have, the better.  There are SO MANY ways to gently reinforce and thank when colleagues do their job well, so get people responsible for tasks and notice when they do them well.  Okay performance is not worthy of note, but if they do it well, catch them. It might sound bizarre, but you tell someone they get a gold star for how they just answered that phone politely, and it makes people feel good.

Tell a colleague you signed them up for two hours of prospecting on Friday, and it translates well (the wife will tell me on Wednesday that she signed me up for two hours of planting in the yard on Saturday, and I just smile and say great.  The chick clicks).

There are, to my mind, some overused terms and phrases.  Merely my opinion, but I think professionals are well-advised to avoid the overuse of:

  • Pick your brain
  • At the end of the day
  • Deep Dive
  • Circle back
  • Double Click- just too darn cute as an alternative to deep dive
  • Think outside the box- (I prefer to aim for clever)
  • Synergy

I’ll close by urging you to read more if a goal is to improve your vocabulary. You’ll be better able to parse sentences, you will build knowledge even if drawn toward fiction, and you will enhance your control of our language.  I am putting you in charge of that.

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