Why Bosses and Employees Seem to Be Living on Different Planets
A few years ago, a CEO said to me that whenever someone came to him to ask for a raise, the first thing he thought of was he needed to find a replacement for this person as soon as possible.
The statement took me back a little. After all, employees are encouraged to ask for raises-particularly, women-because they want to assert their right to be paid for and rewarded for their work. I doubt everybody who asks for a raise is ready to leave their company.
In his view, he explained, whenever someone approached him to ask for a raise it meant that person was unhappy with his or her status in the company. And that meant that person could leave at any moment.
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That got me thinking of other areas of miscommunication between bosses and employees. Below are a few of my favorite and more common ones:
Boss Says: "We should try that out."
Employee Hears: This is a directive that must be executed at all costs.
Boss Says: "That was good."
Employee Hears: That was sub-par.
Boss Says: "That was great."
Employee Hears: That was expected.
Boss Says: Nothing-no reply to a request for approval.
Employee Hears: Approved.
Boss Says: "I'll need the report by Tuesday."
Employee Hears: Wednesday at 12:01 am.
Boss Says: "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Employee Hears: I'm fired.
Boss Says: "Anything else you want to ask me?"
Employee Hears: Don't ask me anything else.
And for good measure, let's flip this around:
Employee Says: "I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow."
Boss Hears: I'm going to a job interview.
Do any of these phrases ring a bell? What comments have you heard that are commonly misinterpreted around the office? I'd like to know.
Customer Engagement SaaS Technology | Thought Leader | Strategist
8 年Miscommunication, or lack of trust?
AGM - Maintenance and Projects | Mechanical Engineering, Condition Based Maintenance
8 年right
Chief Revenue Officer
8 年Leaders tend to be more direct and concise with their message which can be perceived as aggressive. From a management perspective, having a team that collaborates and doesn't have an alpha who barks orders is always advantageous. Diversity of thought should always be the focus.
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8 年Maybe is lack of communication
Demand and Supply Planning Manager at Fine Hygienic Holding
8 年I think that every boss need to have clear communication and every employee need to ask as much as he need to understand what the boss want from him Then simply each of them has to take the words as is, without the need of digging deeper in each other to extract the visible meaning