“Bill,” he said, “you are a fine mechanic. You have been in this line of work for a good number of years. You have repaired many vehicles to the customers’ satisfaction. In fact, we’ve had a number of compliments about the good work you have done. Yet, of late, the time you take to complete each job has been increasing and your work has not been up to your own old standards. Because you have been such an outstanding mechanic in the past, I felt sure you would want to know that I am not happy with this situation, and perhaps jointly we could find some way to correct the problem.”
This is an excerpt-conversation between Henry Henke, a service manager for a large truck dealership, and his mechanic, Bill. This conversation is an excerpt from the book, How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. As a team leader or someone in a managerial position, more often than not, we find ourselves struggling to give feedback or reviews. Too rude. Too timid. Too cold. Too scathing. Our communication ends up in either one of these tones, thereby upsetting the colleague and the team. One way to handle this is to give them a reputation they lived up to. A reputation they had built in the past. Are we manipulating? No. Are we judging? No. We are simply reminding them of who they are and what they are reputed for. Read further to know what Bill did.
Bill responded that he hadn’t realized he had been falling down in his duties and assured his boss that the work he was getting was not out of his range of expertise and he would try to improve in the future. Did he do it? You can be sure he did. He once again became a fast and thorough mechanic. With that reputation Mr. Henke had given him to live up to, how could he do anything else but turn out work comparable to that which he had done in the past.