Are You a Nagging Manager? It's not bad!

Being a deliberately nagging manager is not bad after all, and being a manager without direct authority provide better results. I find this true in my work life experience as a nagger and as one with and without direct authority. Different timing and communication styles are necessary to get your messages across but be careful when you find yourself repeating the same thing more than 3 times as resistant may come into play.

According to a new research by Harvard Business School professor Tsedal B. Neeley and Northwestern University's Paul M. Leonardi and Elizabeth M. Gerber. Their findings are:

• Managers who deliberately inundate their teams with the same messages, over and over, via multiple media, move their projects forward more quickly and smoothly than those who are not. 
• Project managers lacking direct authority work harder at communication. They try to enlist support from team members. They time several messages close together, typically phone calls, face-to-face meeting and followed up by e-mails. 
• Project managers with power delay communication, typically sending an e-mail, assuming that is enough to pressure employees to do the job—only to find themselves later scrambling to do damage control. 
• Redundancy matters more than the clarity of the messaging. It's not the message. It's the frequency of the message that counts in getting the job done. 
• Managers without direct authority got employees to move more quickly and with less mop up needed later. 

It's Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works (by Kim Girard, HBS Home)