Every manager should always be looking for trouble. If they’re not, they won’t see it coming, and it will take them by surprise. And work surprises are never a good thing.

Have you seen the three monkeys depicting “See no evil, hear no evil, sp

eak no evil” implying if we ignore the negatives, they’ll go away? Well, in the business world, ignoring a problem certainly doesn’t make it go away. Instead, the problem simply grows and, ultimately, takes more effort, time, and energy to solve.

You can be a more effective manager by sniffing out potential or hidden issues, pulling them out into the open and figuring out how to address them before they fester and become bigger issues. But since employees are often hesitant to give bosses bad news, how do you find out what’s really going on? How about leaving your office and going to where the employees are.

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