Avoid scolding subordinates publicly to achieve organizational effectiveness – Multichoice MD

Managing Director of Multichoice Ghana, Cecil Sunkwa-Mills has advised top-level management and supervisors in various organizations to treat their subordinates with a high level of respect as it the only way to ensure productivity at the workplace.
According to him, for the organization to succeed and messages passed on effectively, supervisors must avoid publicly embarrassing their subordinates for mistakes done.
“As much as possible, if somebody has to be reprimanded, you find one on one reprimands to be more effective. If you reprimand someone in front of his/her colleagues, they are emotionally distracted and cannot ‘hear’ you, especially if you do so in a high pitched voice”.
He told Akosua Hanson who sat in for Rev. Erskine on Y 107.9 FM’s ‘Myd Morning Radio Show’ that these mistakes tend to be repeated because they (subordinate) can never process the reprimand or criticism regardless of how constructive it is when done publicly.
He furthered that respecting your subordinate and having a private conversation with the person achieves more positive results.
“But when the person does wrong at work and you meet the person privately, and even if I speak at the high pitch, you will say I was addressing issues and I was not embarrassing you. When I do so, I have respected you and that brings a lot of results as opposed to publicly embarrassing a subordinate for wrongs done.
Cecil indicated that managing staff is similar to parenting and knowing this has guided him in his career. “It applies to parenting too. If you scold your child in public, they miss the message completely. It is right for you to scold the child but you must not scold them in public”.
By: Joel Sanco