It’s not a very entertaining way to start off, but oh well. I do try to treat everyone upon first interaction as though they have a brain and can use it. Despite how judgmental I am, I try to reserve criticisms such as, “Well, you’re an effing idiot,” or “How on earth did you make it out of middle school alive,” or “I’ve never met a talking potato before!” until after you do something that warrants such judgment.
Snooki, my dear, you've lost weight!
If you do a good job explaining why someone should do something, they’re much more likely to do it.
Do not say: Hey, you need to finish this mail piece in one week. I don’t care that you heard it won’t be in homes for two months. Just do it.
Do say: Mr./Ms. Designer, I know it seems like you have two months to finish this mail piece, but in fact it needs to be finished in one week because there is a really arcane government agency that has to approve it, and they can’t possibly be bothered to review it in under 45 days.*
You are much more likely to get someone to do what you request if they don’t think you’re making things up arbitrarily just to ruin their day.
Beyond explaining why you’re asking for things, another part of ‘reason’ is to see a task from both sides. I find it helps if you acknowledge off the bat the ridiculousness of your request, and to try and put yourself in the same crazy boat as the person you’re managing.
Do say: Listen, I know this is unreasonable, but we need to finish the script by the end of this week. The recording studio is not being flexible and is telling me the only times we can record the voice actors are either early next week or during the Second Coming.
Note the use of “we,” indicating that we’re in this together, man. And if you can find a common enemy, I say nail them right up. Better your whole team hate the recording studio scheduler than you.
We're in this together. I'm totally not going to let you stay in the freezing water and die.
Mostly it comes down to respect. If you’re managing creatives or anyone who is producing something, remember they are asked to do something pretty incredible: come up with ingenious ideas, words, images, code or whatever that fits a specific set of requirements in an amount of time that is usually not determined by them. However, if you find that reasoning is getting you nowhere, I have a few other tips you can try…
*True story.
Google, I will admit that this is a pretty crazy boat.
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