Being Specific With What We Ask

Elsie González-Leach, Motiva Consulting

October 20, 2022

“I asked him to have new hutches ready for new calves, and he didn't.” 

“I don't have time to do my things because I'm always doing other people's jobs.”

“He is a good worker, but too slow.”

“I told him how to do it, but it seems it comes through one ear and leaves through the other.”

“I trained him, and a few minutes later, I found him doing it wrong.”

“It’s like he doesn't care.”

Sound familiar? Training employees to find them minutes later doing the opposite, or even worse, not doing it at all! It's a frustration shared by many managers. This is why during my leadership workshops, I start discussing this topic by doing a group telling exercise. During this activity, a “manager” is chosen to explain a task, and “his/her employees” will follow his/her directions. Every time we do this, the outcome reveals a gap between the manager's instructions and the employee's interpretation, resulting in failing to follow the “right” directions or doing the job “right”. 

As shown in this activity, the fact that people don't do the job right doesn't necessarily mean they do not care or do not want to perform well. Most people want to do the job right; they just need clear directions. One of the ways successful dairy managers deal with this is by being specific with their requests.

Here are some examples of how they do it. 

Assign Clear Deadlines

 "Ensure the feed is pushed by 10 a.m."

"Push the feed after moving pen 7 to the parlor."

"Wash the hutches after milking, any day by this Tuesday."

This one reminds me of a frustrated dairy manager who shared that the cow mover was supposed to push feed, but that he always needed to step in because it was never done in a timely manner. When asked how he makes this request to his employee, he replied, “push the feed every couple pens during milking”. I suggested to be more specific and try something like, "I need you to push the feed after moving pen 7 to the parlor, then after pen 9, and then after pen 11”. It certainly took a couple of reminders that week, but after it was clear and with consistency, the manager had time to focus on other things. Remember that most people want to do the job right; they just need clear direction. 

Give Specific Instructions

Another dairy manager shared that there was a day a week when he had an extra employee on day shift to help with extra stuff that needed to be done, but that the employee was not doing any of that. When asked how he assigned these jobs, the reply was, “On the day when there are 4 people in a shift, focus on the things that are behind”. It is evident that the “things that are behind” can mean different things to different people. We talked about what specific jobs he was expecting the employee to complete, what was needed, and an estimate on how long these would take, and made a paper list of these jobs. With this list, we met with the employee afterward, and the manager tried saying this instead, “When you're the extra employee that day, here’s a specific list of tasks for you to complete that day”. Then he followed discussing more in specifics on how to do these.

In this particular situation, it didn't quite work on the first attempt, since the employee's order of doing these jobs didn't allow him to complete them on time or to have the resources available. One example of this was that the employee was required to use the skid loader to put bedding, and the time he picked for this task was the same that another employee needed to use it as part of their job. There were many other jobs he could have done during this time, but he was not able to structure his jobs based on what he needed and if these would be available. It was certainly our fault for not being sufficiently specific and expecting the employee to coordinate all this. Some employees are able to have strong executive function skills to carefully coordinate; however, others may need more specific directions. When situations like this happen, we need to be even more specific to ensure efficiency and quality in the jobs. So the following week, we created a detailed schedule with start/end times with specific tasks that needed to be completed and provided a new copy of jobs and times, and discussed with the employee. With some consistency and pre-planning from management, this has been successful.

Avoid Ambiguity

High-performing managers do not use terms that are subjective from person to person. For example, “Make sure that the stalls are clean” or “pens should be milked faster”. We all know that clean and dirty or fast and slow can mean different things to different people. Instead of using such relative terms, these managers take the time to demonstrate their exact expectations. If they want clean stalls, they’ll show what "clean" truly means according to the protocol and teach how to do it. Or when talking about the time it takes to milk or move cattle, they will teach the correct ways to meet the time expectations, rather than just saying it. 

Set Measurable Targets

Being specific is key. If an employee is inefficient, high-performing managers won't just point out the flaw, they will discuss clear numbers. Related to the example above, parlor managers often discuss parlor performance measurement reports with milkers, such as cows per hour, time on unit, milk flows, etc. Understanding what are the goals along with training on milking procedures and cow handling (loading parlor and crowd gate management, for example) will equip their teams with techniques to meet these goals.

One powerful strategy of high-performing dairy managers is to be specific with what they ask for. They don’t just say it; they provide clear instructions, they show it, they have numbers to stay on track and teach their people, ensuring everyone's on the same page. When expectations are crystal clear, excellence will follow.