Discipline © Steven Klein
When I was a child I remember playing with my brother and sisters. Whenever something was broken – that happens frequently in big families, it was “Not me!” and “Nobody”‘s fault. Although I am pretty sure we weren’t lying blatantly, we, as children, didn’t take our responsibilities.
Responsibility goes hand in hand with maturity. As we grow up we hopefully get more mature and thus, take more responsibilities, meaning being able to hear criticism and change. A lot of people cannot do that because as my guru says “When it comes to Ego, most people can’t hear a thing. It’s like their brain is blocking information and rejecting it.”
One of the problems in the office is when you face a situation when it’s Nobody’s fault. There is a problem. It needs to be solved. But once you ask what happened, you hear endless justifications about how he/she did this and how nobody said before we should do that. I often hear foreigners in China complain about their Chinese colleagues or staff. What comes up the most is the “They never say no” “They don’t do basic things” or “We think differently”.
How to manage unresponsible people is about finding a balance between authority respect and nursing:
- Never incriminate someone in front of other people, especially not a Chinese. It sounds easy. You think you understand pretty well the “face” issue. Now think about it with work pressure, deadlines…patience getting short : not so easy…
- Breathe. Always be in control even if you want to defenestrate the person.You are supposed to be a role model not the psycho bitch
- Speak to the person in private. Tell them you trust them (if you do), trigger their emotions to engage them in their actions.
- If there is something wrong say it. Ask “Why do you think the situation is like this?” and “What do you think we should do?” Listen and answer accordingly.
- Give a perspective of how it could be if he/she listened to you – less overtime, a bonus, more interesting stuff, a promotion. Don’t make promises you can’t keep though.
- Don’t assume once the target is reached it will stay like this. You have to be constantly on the back on some people, this is why there are leaders and followers.Repeat endlessly.
- Give the good example. Someone in the army told me once “I’ll never send my guys where I won’t go myself”.
One guy in my team was almost fired before my arrival. I found out he was actually the best element, but because of poor management, his work quality was decreasing. After I encouraged him and gave him more responsibilities I am happy to hear that he is a different person 
And he changed from a “Not me” to a “somebody” in the company.
And he changed from a “Not me” to a “somebody” in the company.
