Thursday, April 21, 2011

Nagging: Redundancy or Consistency?

This study, according to Barking Up the Wrong Tree, shows that nagging works. When managers gave the same message over and over, the results improved.  But I'm tempted to disagree.  Back when I was a new manager and having my problems, as in cursing at an employee, my division director gave me a message.  He pointed to another manager in the division, a loud, boisterous man, WWII veteran whose ship had been sunk under him, who was an obvious male chauvinist. That made him seem to be an odd fit to supervise a female manager after a reorganization.  The director pointed out that the vet was consistent; he was always the same. Further he was fair, and the woman in question was assertive and wouldn't take any crap off him  The director said in his view consistency was the great managerial virtue.  Employees could adjust to any managerial style, so long as it was consistent.  Conversely, it was dangerous to be erratic, to be up and down, to jump from one great idea to another.

So it's possible the good results from repetitive messages was caused less by the repetition than by the consistency.

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