Checking Up on Staff

The act of double-checking the work of those you supervise means ensuring that staff is doing what you've asked them to do, and doing their work in the way that you've asked them to do it. Sadly, there are also times along the bumpy road to executive enlightenment when it means checking to see that they are doing any work at all.

When I think of the importance of double-checking an employee's work, I always think of my friend Eric, of the ice cream vendor, and of playing soccer on one hot Saturday afternoon in July.

Eric was the goalie on my soccer team. That hot afternoon, our opponents were terrible. In fact, my team spent most of the game in the opposing half of the field. I was captain and I was playing the position of sweeper (the center back in the defensive line). At one point, I decided to look behind me and see what Eric was doing. To my surprise, however, the net was empty … Eric was buying an ice cream from a vendor in the park.

A moment like this forces you, ever after, to think twice about making assumptions. Indeed, when I turned around, I believed that Eric would have found some way to entertain himself in the net or that he'd be sitting against one of the goal posts working on his tan. I certainly didn't expect him to be 50 meters away from the net, scrounging through the pockets of his track pants for change to buy an ice cream!

One lesson to be learned here is that people, when they are bored with a given task, will always find ways to occupy themselves. The other lesson, which logically follows, is to always double-check and see what your staff is doing.

Many first-time supervisors, however, find the overt intrusiveness of double-checking difficult. There's something very off-putting about asking staff whether or not they're doing their work, again. Why is it so difficult?

One way to avoid coming across as intrusive is to forewarn your staff that you will be "checking back with them" at a given point in time. Another way is simply to have them check back with you at a given point in time. Dodging the issue of double-checking altogether, however, can only ever lead to disappointment and sometimes, disaster.

As it happened, seconds after Eric wandered away from the net to buy an ice cream, our opponents finally broke out of their half of the field. Eric had to run – ice cream in hand – across the field and back to the net. He then faced a choice: play goalie or finish the ice cream. He chose the ice cream. "What's one goal? There's no way that they'll catch up to us, they're a terrible team," he explained , kicking the ball out of the net, and concluded, "And it's bloody hot."

Needless to say, I learned yet another lesson that day. From that day on, Eric played in the midfield and we found another goalie.

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