You tell them over and over again, but they don’t seem to get it. They don’t get it, so you don’t trust them. You don’t trust them, so you don’t give them more responsibility. You have to do things yourself. Plus, you have to keep them under control. How will you ever make real progress?

You won’t. Not alone. You need their help. All of them. But first, they need your help.

Read the first sentence of this article again. See how much trouble is caused just because they don’t seem to get it? But that isn’t the root cause – their inability to get it. It all starts with the telling. Have you really done what you can to help them understand what you are trying to tell them? 

An employee with a clear understanding of your strategy, priorities, plans, and the associated challenges and risks, is worth far more than an employee doing his job without that understanding. An aware employee can contribute to the company’s success not only by staying focused and using good judgment, but by seeing things you don’t see, hearing things you don’t hear, thinking of ideas you wouldn’t think of, anticipating problems you can’t anticipate, supporting others when you aren’t present – the list goes on and on. You can’t do it all, know it all, or be everywhere. You need aware employees.

But employees need your help to achieve this awareness. Helping your employees understand your strategy, priorities, risks and plans requires regular, on-going dialog. Their attitudes, skill, experience and existing knowledge will affect what they hear in ways that you can not possibly imagine. The only way to know if your communication efforts are succeeding, is to listen. And listening is easier if you ask good, open ended questions. Adapt the following questions to your situation:

• How will this affect our customers?
• How will this affect the people in your group?
• What can you do to help your people understand?
• What makes this hard?
• What skills might we need to develop?
• What attitudes and behaviors will it be important to encourage?
• What resistance should we expect?
• What resources might you need?
• What will you do differently tomorrow?
• How does this affect other priorities?
• Who else needs to be involved?
• What will you have to do to make this successful?

Whether following up on a discussion about a new situation or keeping tabs on a situation underway for many months, open-ended questions such as these will give you the opportunity to see how your employees are thinking about their work, their problems, their people, and more. Meet one on one with employees regularly. Listen respectfully and carefully. Guide them gently as a teacher might. Help their understanding grow along with their confidence.

Keep in mind that the world looks very different from their position. To think like you, they would have to have lived your life. To see the workplace as you do, they would have to have your job. To understand exactly what you say, they would have to share your brain. And to communicate honestly with you, they have to trust you. Telling is not communication. Ask sincerely, listen carefully, and respond from the perspective that it is you who is still missing something, not the employee. When you finally see what they see, they will see what they didn’t see.