Winning Over Staff Who Refuse To Do What You Ask
Every manager faces staff who refuse to do what you ask. Staff who refuse to take direction cause you a lot of stress, anger, delays and uncomfortable questions from bosses and stakeholders. In short, employees who don’t do what you ask, make you look bad as a manager.
There are lots of actions you can take to painlessly turn the “No” into a “Yes”, even from the most stubborn of employees. Learning these skills will enable you to keep all your team members moving in the right direction. You will spend less time delegating work, and you get back what you expect quicker. The team and you will encounter less roadblocks. You will be a lot more relaxed and enjoy being a manager. Your team and boss will have more confidence in you. All of these factors will increase your confidence and effectiveness in your job. You will also have a better performing team which bosses always love. Better team performance means better prospects for you.
Winning Over Staff Who Refuse To Do What You Ask. Painlessly Turn No To Yes
Use the power of understanding
- The 5 best persuasion tactics to employ
- How to create attention grabbing consequences
When requesting for staff to do what you ask doesn’t work, these tactics will.
In the early part of my career, I had to persuade 40+ managers a lot more senior than me to take specific action to improve business performance. I had to get them to do what I wanted without annoying or upsetting them because I wanted to keep my job. I had to get action from some difficult individuals who absolutely knew best without being able to TELL them what to do. I am sharing exactly what I did to get great results and keep these managers very happy with me.
Learning these skills early in my career meant when I began managing teams, I knew exactly what to do when I encountered employees who didn’t follow instructions or refused to do what I asked.
I also learnt that attention grabbing consequences where also very important when persuasion tactics failed and I share how to use these without damaging relationships and trust.
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Podcast
Firstly, when you have an employee not doing what you ask, use the Power of Understanding
Understanding is a very powerful communication tool to use as a manager. To be very successful as a manager, always think about understanding as a two way street. If you want them to understand what you want and why, you FIRST need to understand why they are saying no.
I am sorry to say it – managers mess up just as much as staff members. I have made a ton of mistakes as a manager. I love staff that point these out to me or challenge me when I am suggesting something dumb. When I come across a team member who doesn’t take direction, the first thing I do is ask myself “Is what I am asking for reasonable?” followed by “What am I missing in this situation?”. Checking what you are asking is reasonable is a great step that saves you a lot of aggravation as a manager.
Ask Questions and Listen
After checking the reasonableness of your request, start asking questions and listening to what they tell you. Phrase your questions as a request for them to educate you. Making them feel good and in the driving seat is more likely to get them to open up to you. Then listen. Keep your body language – facial expressions, tone of voice, posture etc – open and receptive. Keep asking questions until you understand what is really driving their refusal to do what you ask. Their objections might be for professional or personal reasons. Find them and understand them.
Once you understand their objections or their underlying reason for not doing what you ask, then you can start addressing their objections. When you have gained understanding about their position, you can then work on helping them understand your position and request.
Communicating and creating understanding are actions that build trust. The more trust you have the less likely you will have any team member refuse to do what you ask without very good reason.
The 5 best persuasion tactics to employ when you have employees who don’t take direction
All the tactics being used here are trying to achieve two things – firstly to get the agreement and action you want. Secondly to maintain trust and a good relationship with the employee. I assume you are requesting employees to take specific action rather than demanding action or threatening them to achieve it.
1 – Always Explain The Context
When making any request, always explain the context of the request and the why behind the request. For a small investment of time, the persuasion impact is big. When individuals understand the purpose behind the request and why it will help the business, the team and them personally, it makes it a lot harder for the individual to say no. Use logic and the what the person’s wants to frame the action you want them to take.
2 – Language and Tone Matter
Always pay attention to the language you use and the tone and pace of your voice when communicating your request. Don’t use any language that will annoy, get their back up, make them go on the defensive, make them feel bad or inadequate etc. Use language and a tone of voice to encourage, to make them feel good, to not give them any excuse to not do what you ask. [click for How To Be More Diplomatic]
3 – Explain How You Are Helping Them
Position what you are asking of them as a way to help themselves. Achieving good business outcomes should help the business and help the team. The business doing well provides job security and it provide development opportunities for all employees. The team doing well enables bigger bonuses and pay rises, more opportunities, a positive culture and a sense of achievement. Position what you are asking for as a way for the individual to help themselves.
4 – Ask For Their Input
This makes the other person feel good, valued and paves the way for compromise. Ask them – “Okay, you don’t want to do X. How do you suggest we get Y result or outcome?” or “The team needs to get to Y outcome. If you don’t like my suggestion, what would you do instead?” Asking for their input moves the request from your solution towards a joint solution or even their solution. Everyone finds it a lot easier to say yes to implement a solution they came up with. Don’t be afraid to compromise if this gets the results you need without damaging your confidence and authority.
5 – Play to Fairness
Play to their feelings of fairness and not letting teammates and you down. Getting a fair deal and being fair to others is hardwired into us through generations of working in groups for survival. If their refusal to do a particular task is unfair to the group they are in, point this out to them. An example “You do realise that if you refuse to do this task, the rest of the group is going to be delayed by three days. How is that fair on them?” Play on their sense of fairness.
The Power Of Persuasion
Persuasion in all its forms is a much better approach that telling individuals to do as you ask. Using persuasion is much less likely to annoy, anger or create illogical resistance. Persuasion also maintains much better longer term relationships. You need your team as much as they need you.
Making the effort to understand and use the 5 persuasion tactics we have just been through. They will work brilliantly with 90%+ of people. They will do what you ask, or they will take action that delivers the results or outcomes you need.
In my experience, just listening and understanding removes the barriers of employees who don’t take direction, very effectively and very quickly in 70%+ of cases, when done well.
For those rare occasions when these approaches don’t work then I suggest you move into the third approach for staff who refuse to do what you ask.
How to create attention grabbing consequences for not taking direction
You should only start talking about consequences of not taking direction when there is a clear pattern of behaviour i.e. regularly refusing to do what you ask. Building and maintaining team trust is very important to team performance. Using idle threats will damage trust and team performance which is not in your personal interests. Instead create structured and supported consequences.
Creating Consequences
There are lots of consequences that you could implement. Mentally create a ladder of consequences, each one having more impact on the individual that the previous. A couple of examples:
At the minor end, consequences could be:
- Reducing public praise or prizes
- Reducing development opportunities
- Cutting back the responsibility and autonomy given to the individual
At the more serious end, consequences could be:
- Performance Improvement Plans
- Disciplinary processes
- Dismissal
I would suggest that you discuss the situation with your boss and explain the plan of action you are intending to take and what you are hoping to achieve. I typically do this even for using the minor consequences. Your boss should never be surprised by people issues in your team.
You Need Support and Permission
As the impact of the consequences increases, you need support and permission to take action. For example your boss and HR will need to give you permission to undertake a Performance Improvement Plan.
When you have permission from your boss and HR, you can position the consequences as the group or company against the individual rather than you personally against the individual. A group against one is a much more powerful position to negotiate from.
When you explain consequences to the individual, always position them as the outcome of not being a team player; of not working for the good of the team and business. Using consequences should never be about getting revenge or repaying bad behaviour or making their life unfairly difficult etc.
Always explain the consequences and link it to the damage their behaviour is causing to the team and business. Always explain how the avoid the consequences. I.e. stop being an employee who doesn’t take direction.
If an employee continues to refuse to do what you ask when your requests are perfectly reasonable and other team members happily undertake them, I suggest you think very hard about whether it is in anyone’s interests for the employee to continue in their current role. Take action accordingly.
Always be fair and reasonable when taking any action that creates consequences for individuals.
in summary
Having staff who refuse to do what you ask is always difficult, stressful and time consuming for any manager. 90%+ of the time, you can quickly and easily resolve the situation by seeking to understand what their issues are, using the 5 persuasion techniques and taking action to remove reasonable issues. Finding an alternative approach that delivers the results or outcomes needed is another option to consider.
Do use the 5 best persuasion tactics with employees who don’t take direction being:
- Explain the context and the why behind the request
- Keep your language and non-verbal communication positive towards the individual
- Position what you are asking for as a way to help the individual
- Ask for their input and compromise
- Play to their feelings of fairness and not letting colleagues down
Do visit us at enhance.training for leadership tools built trust, fairness and teamwork to help you lead your team to even more impressive results.
If you have any questions on “Winning Over Staff Who Refuse To Do What You Ask. Painlessly Turn No To Yes”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Managers are in a tough job in that they don’t have control over their team, only influence AND they are judged on their team’s performance. This can be pretty stressful at times, particularly when you have difficult team members.
Using all the actions and tactics covered in this article will make a massive difference to your persuasiveness and your ability to get team members to do what you need.
You absolutely can build strong influencing skills with a bit of time and practice. I started off just like everyone else – pretty rubbish. Take the next step right now and start practicing what we have covered!
Gain Management Expertise and Confidence Quickly
Use our course to quickly gain the management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance.
