One tip to make your New Year resolutions achievable.

Hopefully you are celebrating the successful achievement of your 2010 goals.  And hopefully you are looking forward to setting new goals for yourself and maybe your department, organization or community.  You have probably heard it's a good idea to write them down and tell other people about them.

Most people think it is about record keeping.  Good record keeping is no small thing in itself when it comes to September and you are trying to remember what you promised to do.  However, that is not the main reason why  writing a resolution down and telling other people about it makes it more achievable.

It's nothing "new age" or anything mystical about the universe.  It's a simple insight we have into the psychology of how our minds work.  There is indeed a power to writing things down and telling others:  it's the psychological power of cognitive dissonance.

Consider two statements:  "I am a good person" and "I tell the truth".  Most of us would believe both of these to be true about ourselves.  Now say you write down your resolution and you achieve it.  Ta dah!  You are a good person and you tell the truth.

However, let's say you wrote down your resolution and you are maybe not going to achieve it.  Cognitive dissonance kicks in.  Perhaps "I am a good person" and yet "I don't tell the truth".   This is unlikely and your mind rejects it.  Instead, your conscious and subconscious mind works on the the idea that "I am a good person" and "I tell the truth" therefore … "I should/I must achieve my resolution". 

The act of writing down your resolution means you have taken more effort with your resolution and the harder is it for your mind to think you went to that effort, you're a good person but you didn't tell the truth.

The power of cognitive dissonance says the more effort you put into writing down your resolution the more your unconscious will motivate you to make it true.  Buy an expensive note book, use  fancy calligraphy and give a copy to all your friends.

Of course, you could argue that telling other people just means you will get shamed into having to complete your resolution, but it is really the same thing.  If you are a good person and you tell the truth and you look like you are not going to achieve your resolution…either you have to put a lot of mental and social effort into explaining to yourself and others why…or you just put extra effort into achieving the resolution!

If you are a manager or leader get the people you work with to write down their resolutions, goals and promises for the coming year.  Join them, and be the first one prepared to share your resolutions publicly.  Watch how the more effort is put into writing down the resolution, and the more publicly it is shared, the harder people will work at all levels to make it come true.

Cognitive dissonance was one of the first things I learned as a psychologist about counseling people and I was stunned by how well it works in almost every case.

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization

Peter Drucker, King of management gurus, has five essential questions for every organization. This book includes content from five of today’s thought leaders, to supplement Drucker's questions and bring them up to date.

You can use this book as a tool for self-assessment. In the words of one reviewer "...answering these five questions will fundamentally change the way you work, helping you lead your organization to an exceptional level of performance."

Peter Drucker’s five questions are:  

 

What is our Mission? with Jim Collins 

Who is our Customer? with Phil Kotler

What does the Customer Value? with Jim Kouzes 

What are our Results? with Judith Rodin

What is our Plan? with V.Kasturi Rangan

 

I have recently worked with a couple of organizations who have looked at themselves closely in terms of the five questions and who are entering the new decade with a completely reshaped vision of themselves.  

One large non-profit had to ask the hard question:  Who are we here to serve?  Their customers were not only the members of society served by their community impact delivery, but also the donors, volunteers and others who had to be engaged by the organization's mission.  In these difficult times this non-profit is providing real leadership on the new "business as usual" and managing to maintain their donor and volunteer base.

 

Another client is a project team leading a significant ERP implementation across a 3,000 employee organization.  Over the last six months or so they have been looking very carefully at what their (internal) customers value, and the results they are really there to deliver.  As a result their "go-lives" are customer focused and the departments they work with are partners in ensuring everything goes smoothly.

 

The five questions could be obvious, (see my Monty Python article), but the depth of analysis enables this book to be a real breakthrough framework for many.

Why your 360 appraisal shouldn’t suck!

In various places around the world there are probably more than 20,000 professionals doing some kind of 360 degree performance review that I helped their employers design.  

Obviously, I like multi-rater appraisals.  But, just like the airline employee that is told everyone’s travel woes, I am told all the time about 360 processes that suck. They shouldn’t.

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When I hear 360’s aren’t going well I know it’s one of two things:  either there’s something flawed in the process, or the culture of the organization isn’t supportive of candid, constructive feedback.  This article is about what you can do to fix each of these.

A 360 Degree review is when someone gets structured feedback on their performance from the variety of sources  all around them…peers, internal and external customers, their managers, people they have worked with on projects, and their direct reports, just to name a few different groups who can be involved.  Let’s call them the 3Cs:  Customers, Colleagues and Community.  All of these have a vested interest in recognizing the person’s strengths and helping them improve their performance.

Ideally there are only two questions you need to ask:  “What does the person do well?” and “What are the person’s opportunities for improvement?”

That’s it.  Why?  Because the aim of the exercise is to find out what the person does well so we can recognize and reward good behavior, along with what the person could do better so we can help them improve to meet the reasonable expectations of the 3Cs.

Sometimes the raters find it hard to structure their feedback in a way that is specific and relevant.  It can be useful to ask more guided questions to help the feedback be more useful and easy for raters and person being evaluated.  Sometimes an organization will have a leadership model, management competencies, or specific promises that have been made to the 3Cs, (like a “customer service pledge”).  If that’s the case it makes sense to ask specifically if these are things the person is doing well, or if they are examples of things the person can usefully improve.

Basically though it will still come down to two questions: “What does the person do well?” and “What are the person’s opportunities for improvement?”

In terms of process it’s now possible to identify a few things that can make 360s suck.  If  there a bunch of questions that are onerous, intrusive or irrelevant to the raters, then the process sucks.  If it isn’t easy for the person rated to translate the feedback into actionable, meaningful performance improvements, then the process sucks.  If the person being rated is more concerned with the salary, bonus or promotion impacts of the process than the opportunity to meet the reasonable expectations of their customers, colleagues and community, then the process sucks.

The other big problem with many 360 programs is that they are embedded in a culture that doesn’t support candid, constructive feedback.  The most common reason is that they are inappropriately tied to performance and/or salary reviews, so let’s deal with this first.

If I’m designing an ideal performance review there are only two questions I would add to the two 360 review questions.  The first is “How did the person do compared to what they promised to do?”   The answer could be in the form of sales results, budget variations, project milestones or whatever.  The issue is “here’s what you said you would do, and here’s what you actually did”.  If your goals and reviews aren’t that specific they’re probably useless.

Armed with the variance between promised and actual performance you can now sit down with the person to review their results and look at consequences.  First, let’s hear what the person has to say, both about their actual versus promised performance, and about what they think they do well.  Let’s confirm what they think  where we can with the feedback from the 3Cs.  Then let’s talk about opportunities for improvement using the 360 feedback and the person’s own views.

Now it is time to move on to the second question you can add to the 360 input at performance review time: “Is this how you want your career to go, and what can we do about it?”  With input that’s objectively sourced from all around the person, and a respectful consideration of what they want to get out of their job and career, it’s relatively easy to look at what kinds of training, development activities, rewards and recognition will best suit the individual and the organization.

That sounds like a lot of work, but it isn’t and even if it is, it’s worth it.  Lack of effort is one of the biggest problems with 360 feedback or any kind of performance review.  There are few things more debilitating for an employee than knowing there is a great, big review coming up only for it to be a one off event followed by “business as usual”. 

I have seen a lot of carefully thought out review processes undone by the fact that once the feedback has been received the notes, commitments and details go into a drawer.   They don’t get looked at again for twelve months or the next anxiety producing review session.

Another big organizational killer of 360 feedback, (or any kind of performance review), is the tendency to personalize the material.  This takes two forms.  One is where the providers of feedback don’t get confidentiality.  It should always be possible to give and take candid feedback.  It should go without saying that when you solicit feedback anonymously the people providing the feedback should be confident that their input will be kept confidential and there will be no adverse consequences.  Without confidentiality where appropriate the feedback becomes self-serving.

The second kind of personalization that kills feedback is when the input from the raters focuses on the person rated rather than their performance or abilities.  Sometimes people use the review process to “get back” at the person rated, or use the opportunity to make the rated person look worse thinking it makes the rater look better.

 If the process is being run internally the solution for both of these is for someone outside the feedback loop to moderate the input.  This can be done by merging/purging the data so that it doesn’t easily carry identifying material, or by going back to the rater and asking them to be less personal and more performance focused with their comments.

This sort of process moderation is often carried out by functions such as HR or Quality Assurance.  Similarly, HR or the person’s manager should ensure that the person being rated doesn’t take the feedback personally, or disrespect the input by devaluing the people it comes from.  If an external coach or consultant is running the process this is one of their essential functions.

In summary then, here are the keys to ensuring your 360 doesn’t suck: 

•    One questionnaire to the person’s customers, colleagues and community with as few as two questions, or as many as are specific, relevant and easy for raters to handle.
•    Confidentiality for raters.
•    One review at the end of each significant time period, achievement or milestone that adds a comparison of actual and promised performance, identification of what’s going well and what can be improved, and a discussion of career and job development.

•    Feedback formatted in a way that is actionable for the person rated.
•    Developmental 360 feedback separated from salary, bonus or promotion consequences so that the focus is on…development.
•    Accountability placed on the rated person to come up with an action plan, and follow up sessions to ensure that what is promised becomes what is delivered.

A good 360 degree performance review process focuses attention on what matters most for the person to meet the performance expectations of their customers, colleagues and community, and provides a supportive environment for that to happen.  That's what performance reviews should be all about.

A psychologist's thoughts on the Tour De France

This isn’t a post just for cycling lovers.  As you can see on the left, I enjoy getting out on two wheels whenever I can.  However, I’ve just spent three weeks watching the biggest international event in professional cycling, and I have some thoughts on what I saw and how it relates to the world of business.  Here are my (slightly) random thoughts.

It’s about teamwork.  The cyclists cover thousands of miles across France, and at the end of the race there can only be one winner.  However, it’s impossible to imagine anyone being successful over such a long trial without the backing of their team.  Wheels need to be changed; drinks need to be brought up.  Sometimes a rider sacrifices their own bike to pass it to another member of their team whose bike has crashed and who has a better chance of winning.  If you can’t maintain the support of your team you will never win.

Respect differences.  The Tour De France is a race for all types.  Some of the racers are lean little whippets who excel at sprinting away on the flat.  Some cyclists are powerhouses of muscle who get away from the pack on the long hills.  Each team has a balance of people who are best at different things, and they had better understand and respect each other for their different contributions.

The journey is the prize.  If you don’t make one of the top three placings or win a special jersey for King of the Mountain or similar the financial rewards aren’t that great for three weeks spent pedaling around 3,500 kilometers, (or more than 2,000 miles).  I read that the prize for the fourth place winner is 70,000 Euros, (about $US100,000), and that tails down to the rider that finishes 19th earning just 1,000 Euros.  Even the winner, Alberto Contador, isn’t that well rewarded.  He gets 450,000 Euros, but that has to go toward paying for the team, (and there are nine riders in a team), the support vehicles, the team managers and cooks and buses and everything else.  I’m not saying the ones at the top don’t get enough in support and endorsements to make it worthwhile.  I do think it’s not the money that motivates the average participant.  You can bet they “get in the flow” when they get on their bike, and they get a reward from what they do that isn’t just financial.

Team results?  Team rewards.  Even if you only want to maximize the performance of the best rider, you had still better make sure you reward the whole team for their effort.  We know that there can only be one winner, and you would think the way to ensure that everyone puts in their best effort is to focus on rewarding individual achievement.  Instead, the teams and the organizers ensure there are prizes, jerseys and accolades enough to reward everyone.  Not every rider can be number one.  When you have to get the best out of more than a hundred cyclists you have to ensure that everyone has a stake in making it a great race.

Knocked over?   Get up again.  Every day someone “hits the wall” and falls behind, or literally hits a wall or something else and falls over.  Every day they get up and start over again.  When I was a kid I had tremendous resilience.  If I fell over I’d just dust myself off, get a band aid or two and carry on.  As we get older we lose that, and yet here are people riding with broken collar bones, bruises, cuts and all sorts of damage.  Most of what we think hurts us isn’t really that bad, and if we just get back on our bikes we are surprised by how far we can go.

The link to business?  I love the Tour De France.  There’s something wonderful about watching athletes of the highest caliber competing in any sport.  I think that if any of these cyclists have the inclination to participate in business they have the temperament to do pretty well.

60 Second Guide to Performance Agreement Meetings

Organizations are emphasizing the importance of multiple sources of information when doing performance reviews and giving performance ratings to your employees. A great source of information that will help you understand your team’s performance and help them to improve is an open discussion about your employees' performance with your manager and peers. Over the next 60 seconds, we'll bring you up to speed with the latest way to help your employees reach their maximum potential.

0:60: What is a Performance Agreement meeting?

A Performance Agreement Meeting is the formal name for a discussion between a manager and one or more of their supervisors where they come to an agreement about performance ratings before the supervisor meets with their employees. They are also called One-Up Meetings, Performance Calibration Meetings and Performance Consensus Meetings.

0:54: Why bother?

We know that one of the things that is most important to employees is a sense they are being treated equally and fairly in the workplace. Performance ratings have such a huge impact on career development, job opportunities and work distribution. It’s important that every employee feels they are being judged by the same standards.

0:48: You mean it’s like diversity?

Exactly. We’re used to diversity requirements that ensure we treat employees equally and without fear or favor based on their race, gender or age. Ensuring performance ratings are applied equally by different supervisors is just an extension of the same principle.

0:42: Don’t I already have enough information?

Perhaps. The truth is supervisors don’t always get it right. There are at least three reasons why you might not have the right information to rate your employee alone. Sometimes other people see different things you do…we all know employees who behave differently around their boss, for better and worse. Sometimes you have a different “yardstick” to everyone else…what you call unreasonable may be OK by the rest of the group, and vice versa. Finally, sometimes supervisors are just wrong. Our own judgments aren’t always right and it’s wise to have a second, or even a third and fourth opinion to take into account.
0:36: Won’t it take too long? It doesn’t sound very practical…
The key is to focus on short, practical discussions without lengthy procedures and processes.

0:30: Does this mean my managers don’t trust me? Don’t I know my employees best?

The process works best when there is openness and trust. It’s about helping, supporting and developing supervisors so they can do their job more easily and develop their careers. Managers know supervisors have the best knowledge of their employees’ performance. That’s why they want to be involved through the process. They don’t just want to know when there is a problem, they also want to know when people do well.

0:24: OK, but how do we get the conversations going?

First, the ground rules: there has to be confidentiality and trust. Be open to hearing what others say about your employees, and be prepared to share your view of their performance. Use the discussion as an opportunity to get more input and prepare better feedback for your employees.

0:18: So what are some good discussion starters?

Use these simple starting points for your discussions:

1. The Start-Up Test: Who would you take with you to start up a new role, department, or company.
2. Riding, or Pulling the Wagon: Talk about who you think the employees would judge is pulling their fair share, and who is “riding in the wagon”.
3. The Incredible Shrinking Job: Some people seem like perfectly good performers, but we make allowances for them so that their job shrinks each year. Maybe they don’t know how to use the latest technology, or they’ve been here a long time and no-one wants to rock the boat by asking them to stretch themselves. Which of our employees has an Incredible Shrinking Job?

These three exercises give an opportunity to explore the manager’s view, the peer view and the market view respectively. With the first test, really look closely at identifying the top two or three. With the wagon test review 360 feedback where available and other data to support the “riding or pulling” decision. Finally, really look at your employees and decide if they are still as valuable as we thought they were when we hired them, and how would the market value them today.

0:12: What happens next?

At the end of the day the final rating the employee gets is still the responsibility of the supervisor. After an open One-Up Meeting with your manager and your peers you will have good feedback to know that your ratings are fair and consistent with how others in your group are evaluated.

0:01: How do I arrange a Performance Agreement meeting to help me rate my employees?

Performance Agreement Meetings should be just a normal part of managing your staff. You can probably arrange discussions for a couple of hours two or three times a year with your manager to make sure your evaluations of your staff are fair and consistent. Get in touch with your manager, or if you would like to arrange meetings with your peers contact them or anyone in your Human Resources Department.


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If they're not on track...ask!

“I have an employee who isn’t meeting my performance expectations. I don’t want to take disciplinary action inappropriately…is there some short set of questions I can ask that gets to the bottom of the issue?”

Managers are often reluctant to take appropriate corrective action with an employee. Sometimes it’s because they think the employee is too senior, (really), sometimes they feel it’s just a personality issue they need to get over, and sometimes they can’t quite put their finger on the performance issue that needs to be addressed. Corrective action comes in many forms, and disciplinary processes are the last resort.

Here are the four questions I use:

1: Is the goal unclear? Sometimes employees don’t meet expectations because they don’t understand what the expectations are. Of course, sometimes the managers aren’t clear on the expectations either, and that’s where a good performance review and consensus process is essential. However, if there is any doubt at all on the clarity of the goals there is a simple solution. Make sure they’re SMART, (Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Defined).

2: Is the employee competent? Sometimes the employee just doesn’t have the required skills and abilities for the job. No amount of “performance management” is going to fix that. Have a candid discussion with the employee and decide to either get the required coaching and training, or change the employee’s job requirements.

3: Have things changed? Sometimes circumstances have moved on and the original goals just aren’t relevant any more. Particularly in the current climate, you can’t hold employee’s personally responsible for circumstances out of their control. Once again, have a candid discussion with the employee, remove barriers to success, facilitate problem solving, or renegotiate the goal.

4: Is it a problem of motivation? This is probably the classic precursor to disciplinary action. If the goal is clear, the employee is competent and things haven’t changed, then the only reason I can see why the employee isn’t performing is because they don’t have the appropriate engagement, incentives, or motivation. Manage them up or manage them on.

Most people are aware an issue exists before the discussion starts. Demonstrate that you can be trusted and the conversation will go much easier. If the employee knows they will be treated with dignity and respect you’ll have an open and candid exchange and come to a positive resolution.

Feel free to download a copy to keep or distribute here. You can email me here with comments or leave a question or reaction below.

Getting the most from ‘one-up’ meetings with your boss on performance

“OK…my HR team has convinced me to get involved in our performance calibration meetings. I’m going to have a “one-up” meeting with my boss. What should I expect, and how can I prepare so I get the best use of my time?”

You and your manager are going to sit together and discuss the performance standards in your area. There may even be other supervisors there. Whether or not it’s been arranged formally, most executives want their managers to come to them with a sensible plan for how they are going to apply the organization’s performance standards to their people. Some businesses such as GE even mandate the process.

You are probably going to come to two kinds of understanding: UNDERSTANDING of the RATINGS that define each level of performance, and common APPLICATION of the RATINGS across a range of performers. Your ‘one-up’ meeting is really a Ratings Consensus meeting.

I recommend clients start by agreeing on a common understanding of the performance ratings. To do this, don’t just look at words such as Below, Meets or Exceeds Expectations. You can argue about those all day and still not reach agreement. Rather, imagine what it would look like if an employee were performing at that standard in your group.

For example, you discover an employee error and the employee is asked to correct it. The employee denies there is an error and refuses to investigate or take corrective action. Depending on the severity of the error, you might all agree this is behavior meriting a “Below Expectations” rating or even disciplinary action. Another example might be a receptionist who is recognized by others for their enthusiasm and whose greetings are now standard throughout the department merits an “Exceeds Expectations” rating.

Gaining this kind of agreement on the meaning of the performance ratings can take a significant amount of time, depending on the number of ratings in your system, and the number of different levels of employees and kinds of jobs they have. If well facilitated you can do this as a group, (one manager and all their supervisors), and it shouldn’t take much more than 90 minutes to three hours. A worthwhile investment for a certain return in future time, well-being and productivity!

Once you have reached agreement on what the ratings look like when translated into behavior, it’s a relatively simple process to have a principled discussion about the ratings to be applied to each person. Whether it’s done as a group, (which I recommend), or just between you and your boss, all you have to do is produce your best examples of the employee’s behavior which fit with the ratings you have agreed on. If you’re doing it as a group, be prepared that other people may disagree with you based on what they see.

This is also the answer to the preparation you need to do. Throughout the review period keep a running collection of examples of the employee’s behavior and achievements. Present them at the meeting.

I’ve talked before about the benefits to the organization when good performance consensus occurs. There is also a big payoff for the supervisor. It’s difficult to be the only one who sets stretch goals, or holds people accountable. It’s also hard to earn the disrespect of your people for being too harsh, or too soft. It’s much easier to be a principled people leader and be known for achieving your goals when you are consistent and have the support of your peers.

Download a copy to keep or share here, and email me with any questions here.

Gaining consensus on performance ratings

“My human resources team wants me to get involved in “Performance Calibration Meetings.” It seems like a lot of work and something that will take away my ability to rate my people the way I want. Why should I get involved?”

A Performance Calibration Meeting is a discussion between a manager and one or more supervisors where they come to an agreement about the performance ratings to be applied to the supervisor’s employees.

By performance ratings I mean the kind of feedback we give to employees in their performance reviews. They are usually some variation of the Below Expectations, Meets Goals, and Exceeds Standards variety. There are two kinds of calibration: common UNDERSTANDING of the RATINGS that define each level of performance, and common APPLICATION of the RATINGS across a range of performers. A better term for the meetings may be Ratings Reviews, or Ratings Consensus meetings.

The meetings are designed to enable managers and supervisors to reach agreement on the performance ratings to be given to each employee. They do take time and require some deep thinking about the standards your employees are achieving. They are definitely a good idea, and I support their introduction into every management and executive team I work with. Here’s why.

We know that one of the things that is most important to employees is a sense they are being treated equally and fairly in the workplace. Performance ratings have such a huge impact on career development, job opportunities and work distribution. It’s important that every employee feels they are being judged by the same standards. We’re used to diversity requirements that ensure we treat employees equally and without fear or favor based on their race, gender or age. Ensuring performance ratings are applied equally is just an extension of the same principle.

We also know that if we want to use our performance ratings as input to decisions such as pay, bonuses, promotions and disciplinary actions…they had better be right! I have seen many organizations open themselves up to significant legal and financial consequences because their performance management system contained inherent biases or a disorganized application of standards.

Quite apart from making sure that the organization applies consequences and rewards appropriately, you want to make sure you don’t suffer from applying performance ratings inappropriately.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power that comes from having everyone in the organization aligned around the right tasks performed to the right standards. Providing a common language, common understanding and common application of performance ratings eases communication and ensures accountability. We know that with a well functioning performance management system you can easily achieve 10 – 15% efficiency and productivity gains with the same resources.

As always, trust is essential. If you are going to participate in a performance consensus process of some sort there had better be an atmosphere of respect and trust. You are going to talk about how employees are judged, and how you set and enforce standards. The people you are sharing with had better respect confidentiality, and be well motivated to supporting and helping each other. If they are, the rewards are significant.

Feel free to download a copy to keep or share here, and you can always email me with questions or follow up here.

Manage them up, or manage them on

Five Key Steps To Managing Less Than Satisfactory Performance

Every employee with a development need should have feedback and planning to help them gain insight and improve. Performance that falls short of a reasonable standard, or behavior that needs improving needs to be addressed. How does a manager provide appropriate feedback in a way that gets the message across, maintains the employee’s morale and motivates them to develop?

Communicating the message

Every discussion should take place in an environment of good performance management, candid feedback, and positive efforts to maintain and enhance employee engagement. I’m not just talking about what happens when you have the performance discussion. Being reasonable, and treating the employee with dignity and respect are paramount at all times.

The five key steps

The five key steps are always the same. Good planning is necessary to adapt them to the commercial, legal and individual requirements of each situation. First, find an appropriately supportive time and place for the discussion, and then…

1. Raise the issue, and its impact. Be specific and factual without being judgmental. Explain where the performance of an essential and not incidental requirement of the position falls short of a reasonable, previously communicated standard

2. Allow the opportunity for the employee to provide a reasonable explanation

3. Agree on an action plan, new results or acceptable behavior with agreed dates and timings for follow up and review. Involve the employee, confront excuses or resistance and get a commitment to the changes while ending with an expression of support.

4. Clearly communicate the consequences if the unacceptable performance or behavior continues

5. Set agreed dates for review, (30-60-90 days or whatever is appropriate)

Some common traps

Of course, it’s not always that easy. I advise clients never to have the same conversation twice. Be sure before you begin that you understand what consequences you are going to put in place if the performance continues…and stick with it. The five steps have been carefully worded so that they are not only appropriate in a legal sense, but also in a practical sense. Many leaders find it hard to be objective about performance: they struggle to describe the performance non-judgmentally, or they bring up issues that are only incidental to the job, or they try to hold someone accountable for a standard that isn’t reasonable, or has never been adequately communicated. Or the worst trap of all: they let poor performance go uncorrected until one day they apply 50,000 volts to the hapless employee.

The essential element is to be firm with the facts and fair with the people. Sometimes the leader takes on the issue and becomes the problem solver for the employee. Listen and respond with empathy to the employee’s situation while leaving them with the responsibility for the performance and its solution. Firm with the facts, fair with the people.

Finally, the issue of consequences requires the application of the leader’s judgment. What is appropriate? In some cases it is fair to the organization and the employee to communicate that continued performance at an unacceptable level may lead to termination of employment. Sometimes it is proper to discuss a transfer to a position better suited to the employee’s capabilities, (without hiding unacceptable performance or rewarding people by reducing their responsibilities). Maintain consistency and candor at all times.

Take a commercial and legal position on a reasonable time that the performance could continue, then make sure the consequences are proportional to the performance gap. And of course, there are always circumstances in which the employee’s behavior is so unacceptable that summary dismissal is appropriate

What makes the conversation easier? Trust

Most people are aware an issue exists before the discussion starts. Demonstrate that you can be trusted and the conversation will go much easier. Trust is the essential ingredient: Trust that you’re capable; Trust that you’re reliable; Trust that you are open, and Trust that you will consider the interests of the employee as well as the business.

Sincerely,

David

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