Perhaps you're not comfortable speaking to your team on a human level, however, I would ask that you consider importance of your communication and rapport building skills. Your success as a manager is highly dependent on your ability to listen and speak with your people.

Human beings crave attention and acceptance and they want to know you care. If your customers and your team members feel that you're interested and care about them as individuals, then it becomes so much easier for you to achieve your goals.

Successful entrepreneurs are excellent at building rapport. When you meet them they don't necessarily talk about themselves, they ask you questions. I've met several successful business people and I'm always impressed and flattered by their interest in me.

You can practise your rapport building skills any time, particularly in your personal life. In locker room at my local health club, I notice that many of guys don't speak to each other. I always make a point of saying hello or passing time of day. If they don't want to talk then that's fine. However, I find they usually do and I've had some interesting conversations.

And forget what your mother said about never speaking to strangers - always speak to strangers!

Speak to everyone you meet and practise your rapport building skills - taxi drivers, people in trains, aeroplanes and anywhere else you come into contact. I sometimes have to push myself to do it but I'm always glad when I do.

I've had salespeople say - "Oh, I'll deliver that to customer, it's on my way." Customer service people will say - "I'll go and talk to distribution or finance department about that." You have to keep asking yourself question, "Is what they're doing helping me to achieve my outcomes?" If answer is "no" then don't let them do it.

Make it clear to your team what outcomes are and don't concern yourself too much about how they get there. Now that doesn't mean that you encourage a salesman to get a sale at any cost, or a chef to use inferior ingredients. And you obviously don't want a maintenance engineer cutting corners that could jeopardise safety.

However it does mean using thinking part of your brain and not listening to your inbuilt programs. Your people may not do a job way you would do it but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

I've often listened to a salesperson speaking to a customer and found myself thinking - "That's not way I'd do it." The temptation then, is to jump into conversation or speak to salesperson afterwards. However I've learned to keep my mouth shut, because many times salesperson closed business, customer was happy and it probably was better than I would do it.

I checked into a hotel recently and as I signed paperwork bubbly receptionist complimented me on my cologne. She asked what kind it was so that she might buy some for her boyfriend.

Now I know this hotel chain and this isn't part of welcoming speech. I also know that some managers would discourage this level of familiarity between staff and customers. But I'll tell you something - as a customer, I loved it, she certainly brightened my day. Her response was far better than some of stuffy robotic greetings you get from most receptionists at major hotel chains. This receptionist had made me a happy customer and if I owned this hotel that's an outcome I would want.

The successful manager defines outcomes to team members and then lets each person find their way of getting there. That doesn't mean you walk away or have no idea what's going on. You need to be constantly out there with team, watching and listening and supporting what they're doing.

I believe that two characteristics of successful business owners and managers are -

1.They get job done and 2.They do it in easiest and least stressful way.

I'm just pointing this out, because to try and control your team's activities and get them to do things way you want them done, is extremely stressful. It can also mean that you de-motivate team and then it'll be much harder to achieve your outcomes.