If you supervise other people you might get interrupted frequently by your direct reports. If this is the case you need to take some action to improve communication and reduce interruptions.
1) Do you have regular meetings?
If there is a regular team or one to one meeting people collect not so urgent items for discussion during the meeting. You only get disturbed for urgent matters. Without such regular communication opportunity there is no other choice than coming to you to ask and most people then tend to go for each single item.
2) Do you empower your subordinates?
Are your direct reports allowed to make their own decisions? Do they know their limitations and are these large enough to work autonomously? Otherwise people have to come to you all the time to confirm each action or decision. Slowly increase the responsibility the delegate and you will usually see that people react positively.
3) Did you establish communication rules?
It sometimes is a good idea to establish basic communication rules. These rules define when to better write a mail, pick-up the phone or coming in for a meeting. You should also make clear how you prefer to communicate with you team.
4) Do you respond quickly?
Do you respond quickly to your emails or do employees only get a response if they personally come to you and clarify the item on the spot. If this is the case you first have to improve your response time. It will require a little bit more time in the beginning but it will quickly pay of through a reduction of interruptions.
Related articles:
- Stop interrupting yourself
- Where to position your desk in the room
- Open door policy?
- Closing a conversation
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