April 26, 2007I’ll Let You Take Care of This
John asked for help from Roger by saying,
- I’ll let you take care of this.
The wording implies that John is doing Roger a favor by allowing him to do the project, when in fact it was Roger that would be doing John a favor by accepting.
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The arrogant tone of this phrase has always made the hair on the back of my head stand up. My response whevenver possible is not to be able to accept the favor. Gee, that’w nice of you, but….
Doesn’t always work, but I have cleared the phrase out of a couple of vocabularies.
Nik Nikkel
Comment by Nik NIkkel — April 26, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
The work is probably clearly John’s Responsibility.
While I agree the response is unkind, it is likely that Roger is reminding John that the work is clearly his responsibility. Perhaps a more effective power phrase would be “John, I believe that is your responsibility and I would appreciate it if you would take care of it yourself.” Perhaps the response could go on to invite debate or offer help, with “If you don’t see it that way, please explain why” and “If you need my help in this, please let me know.” Perhaps this can be analyzed further according to the “monkey school of management responsibility”
Comment by Lee Beaumont — May 10, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
Actually, Lee, in this case it was appropriate for John to pass the work on, but his choice of words created resistance.
Lots of good phrases in your post. nice to hear from you!.
Comment by merylrunion — May 17, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
Simply adding “If you don’t mind,…” before the original statement would be appropriate.
Comment by Pam Prince — May 17, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
I beleive that this is a good phrase. It provides support, however without removing responsibility. Ensuring that we do not erode the employees self esteem.
As a manager I enjoy this phrase. Especially during peak time.
Comment by Pedro — May 17, 2007 @ 8:22 pm
I prefer to hear something along the lines of: Could you please take care of this for me? The original poison phrase strikes me as sounding dismissive, the task and the person receiving the task.
Comment by Cindy Mueller — May 24, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
May I suggest that “I trust you to take care of this. Let me know if you need my help to clear obstacles.”
Comment by Vicki — May 24, 2007 @ 4:31 pm