Bringing Elder Care Home

Vol. 2, No. 4

Good Management Basics
Second of Four Parts: The Two Components
of Speaking the Truth

By John Paul Marosy, President
Bringing Elder Care Home LLC
jpmarosy@charter.net
(508) 854-0431

Ask any stressed-out employed family caregiver what can make or break her job situation. More often than not, she'll tell you it's the attitude or behavior of the manager to whom she reports.

This is the second in a four-part series of articles that examines how good management basics can promote elder care/work balance. Managing elder care conflicts well is a subset of managing people well. To succeed, a manager needs to pay consistent attention to four elements of good management:

Clear accountability for performance
Open, honest, and on-going communication
Job design flexibility, and
Respect for privacy and confidentiality.*

Smooth day-to-day operations require honesty and openness between managers and those who report to them. Yet, these are not widely practiced in the work place. Richard Hamermesh of the Center for Executive Development has found that "Even the most powerful executives - people who readily make speeches in rooms full of investment analysts, who testify before Congress, who are able to issue orders that result in thousands of layoffs - cringe at the thought of sitting down with a subordinate to discuss a performance issue."

Honesty and Openness

"Speaking the truth," says Hamermesh, "has two components: honesty and openness. There is a subtle difference between the two. To be honest means there can be no posturing and no careful selection of words. Discussions are candid. To be open means all issues can be raised. A company needs both forms of telling the truth."

What is the climate for honesty and openness in your organization? The answers to the following questions can reflect the type of communication that exists in the organization:

How approachable are managers in the organization?
Are people rewarded for giving negative as well as positive feedback?
Are problems actively elicited or allowed to grow until they become too costly or complex to ignore (or resolve)?
Do managers share their problems with others?
Do managers identify areas where they need to work with others?
Do managers feel comfortable asking for help?*

If you answered positively to a majority of the questions above, you probably work in an organization where the leaders truly embrace the values of honesty and openness. If most of your answers were negative, there may be a need for culture change - and that must start at the top.

Next: On-the-job flexibility - a sure-fire way to avoid costly elder care/work conflicts.

*Excerpts from A Manager's Guide to Elder Care and Work by John Paul Marosy,
Greenwood Publishing, Westport, CT, 1999, pages 63-66. www.greenwood.com

We welcome your thoughts and opinions on this subject. Visit the Elder Care/Work Balance discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bringingeldercarehome

John Paul Marosy
Editor and President,
Bringing Elder Care Home LLC

John Paul Marosy is the author of Elder Care: A Six Step Guide to Balancing Work and Family, available from Bringing Elder Care Home Publishing on line at www.bringingeldercarehome.com or by calling 508-854-0431.

"A Manager's Guide to Balancing Elder Care and Work "provides a valuable, practical guide for policy and program development. It is based on up-to-date research regarding the needs of working caregivers and includes useful examples from a variety of organizations. Mr. Marosy is very knowledgeable about solutions to elder care/work conflicts."

-- Niels H. Nielsen, President Princeton Management Consultants, Inc.

Visit www.bringingeldercarehome.com or call or email today to learn how your organization can offer this effective resource. (508) 854-0431 jpmarosy@bringingeldercarehome.com

This newsletter may be reprinted in whole or in part so long as the author, John Paul Marosy, is credited and the Web site address, www.bringingeldercarehome.com, is provided.