Delivering Difficult Feedback
There’s always a fairly good reason to procrastinate when giving feedback to a challenging employee. What if the employee pulls an attitude and holds you hostage? What if the employee gets hurt feelings and quits? What if the employee stops talking to you? Or, perhaps, there’s just no time. Be honest, there’s no time because you’re typically spending way too much time cleaning up the messes left by your challenging employee!
During our twenty years in the business, we’ve heard hundreds of great excuses for not dealing with performance issues. When managers get down to the real reason for procrastinating when giving feedback, they often admit to either not knowing how to give feedback, or lack confidence in their ability to provide feedback that will motivate the employee to improve. While there are many coaching models, perhaps the simplest approach is to focus on helping the employee develop their skills to achieve optimum performance.
Describe the performance problem in objective terms. As you begin a performance dialogue with an employee, it is important to focus on specific, observable behavior. People resent personal attacks and are more open to hearing about aspects of their behavior that need to change. Phrases like, “You’ve really had a negative attitude lately,” or, “You just don’t seem organized,” will evoke defensiveness. It’s much more effective to discuss specifics regarding the behavior that needs to be addressed. For example, “I’m happy that you completed the report on time and the layout looks good. Unfortunately, there are several errors. Let’s talk about your approach to proofing your work.” Or, “I’ve noticed that you don’t look up and greet our customers when they enter. They talk to you before you talk to them. Let’s talk about our service strategy.”
Express your opinion regarding the performance. For example, “I’m concerned when you send reports out to clients that have errors. I think it makes us look unprofessional.” It is O.K. to express your concern, frustration, confusion, worry, etc. regarding poor performance.
Value the employee. When giving performance feedback, it is critical that you clearly describe the behavior that is inappropriate, or needs to change. However, we often find that even in the case of challenging employees, much of what they do is right on. It is important to value the employee’s other contributions when providing feedback that addresses a particular concern. For example, “Although I’m concerned that you have come in late three times in the last week, I want to make sure you understand I am pleased with how you handle your job once you’re here. You are pleasant to our customers and helpful to coworkers. You meet your quotas. My only concern is your tardiness.”
Encourage input. With the right approach, employees should feel encouraged to talk about their view of the problem and more importantly, ideas they have to address the problem. In some cases, the manager will need to be direct about how the employee should change his or her behavior. In most cases we find that employees can generate their own solutions to behavior that has been identified as inappropriate or counter productive. Employees are always more motivated to try their own suggestions for improved performance. If you can live with their suggestion, give it a chance. You can always regroup later, if needed. The whole goal is to have a dialogue that motivates change. If the employee’s idea might work, give it a try.
Listen. Leadership is based on a relationship. You can’t build a solid relationship based on trust and respect if you don’t listen. Listening says, “I care.” Listening helps you identify, from the employee’s perspective, why there might be a problem. Listening gives you time to begin thinking about solutions that might work to fix the problem. A great coach asks questions, listens to the response, and acts accordingly. It’s no coincidence that the best coaches are also the best listeners.
Outline future behaviors. After you have clearly identified the problem and had a dialogue with the employee about what will change, it is important to clearly outline the behavior you expect to see in the future. For example, “Great. It sounds like you’ve got a plan to have a team member proof your reports before sending them to our clients. Let’s meet in one week to review the reports you’ve sent out during the week. Our goal is to have reports that are 100% accurate.”
Project outcomes, both positive and negative, related to the performance you are discussing. In the past, if coaching has not worked to change behavior, what were the consequences? In some cases, coaching doesn’t work because there are no consequences for the poor performance. In fact, sometimes there are positive consequences for the poor performance. For example, if a salaried employee consistently comes in late, but leaves on time, the positive consequence is less work. Make sure the employee understands the outcome of continued poor performance. In the case of the late employee, you could say, “It sounds like you have some excellent ideas for getting to work on time. Now that you know how serious we are, I know that you will make every effort to be here at start time. However, since we’ve talked about this twice, I want you to know that if you decide to come in late again, I will take the first step in our disciplinary process and write you up.”
Like every other skill you’ve acquired, coaching takes practice. Work hard to help your employees develop. The payoff is improved performance, better morale, greater retention of team members and less stress for you.
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Filed Under: Communication, Leadership, Peter's Blog on May 17th, 2010
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