Here was my biggest tip. If you're managing other employees, especially other employees that you don't have the greatest relationship with, you don't have the best rapport with, and you're worried about the performance, never ever ask them a yes or no question. You don't want to ask them, do you need help? They're not going to say yes. You have to frame the questions in different ways to pull it out of them and get them talking. Don't ask yes or no questions. That's the biggest mistake that people make. In different cultures around the world, people are even less likely to speak up. Americans are very direct. If I'm not happy about something, I'm more likely to just tell you. In a lot of other cultures around the world, that is not the case. They're much more focused on being respectful, or they don't want to create friction, they don't want to create problems. Or they think they have to talk to their manager, and then their manager is the one who would deal with that.
