In this interactive 3-hour workshop, participants will:

• Review the common human responses to workplace drama.
• Gain insight into your typical approach to workplace conflict. 
• Experience a model for non-defensive communication.
• Explore ways to overcome the psychological, physiological and emotional barriers that keep us from living drama free.

Logistics: Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 9am-12pm, main Seattle Public Library

Register for this $99 workshop today.

The squishy stuff is critical to any employee’s success and yet managers frequently delay addressing performance problems that are squishy–because, well, they’re squishy.  Hard to define, hard to address, hard to solve for.

When I had a staff of 65, I never had difficulty addressing performance problems with my staff when the issue was cut and dry: missing a deadline, work quality where hard metrics were involved, attendance or punctuality issues that had a negative impact.  The squishy stuff was always harder. 

Here are some tips for addressing the squishier issues that create business problems in the workplace.

• Thoughtfully name the issue and describe the impact.
• Recognize that you don’t have to be able to solve the problem for the employee.  Your job as the manager is to…
• Bring the issue to the employee’s attention and shift the responsibility for improvement onto their shoulders.
• Focus on the required change, the required outcome.

Thoughtfully name the issue and describe the impact

Put some effort into defining the issue.  Squishy issues require more thinking to define well  It’s also important that you speak to the impact.  Here are some examples:

Recognize that you don’t have to be able to solve the employee’s problem for them

Anger management?  Credibility with senior staff?  Poor relationship building skills?  How can you solve for that for another person.  While it’s great if you can offer the employee some possible solutions: an in-house training workshop, free counseling through the EAP, it’s not your job to have a solution as much as it is your job to point out the gaps between actual and expected performance, make it clear that the gap needs to be closed, and shift that responsibility onto the shoulder’s of the employee in question. 

Shift the responsibility for improvement onto your staff member’s shoulders by focusing on the required change or outcomes

Here are some examples of how you can focus on the desired change:

In conclusion, while managers frequently shy away from addressing the squishier issues, they can be as important, and sometimes more important, than those performance issues that can be described using hard data.  It’s important for managers to demonstrate the necessary managerial courage and take the time to think through how to present these issues.  The sooner you can shift the responsibility for improvement onto the appropriate shoulders–your staff member’s–the better for you, for that staff member, for the team, and for the organization as a whole.

Poor managers shift the bulk of the work to their highest performers while simultaneously doing little or nothing to develop or correct the performance of low performers.  This approach can get the job done in the short run.  In the long term it burns out your stars, rewards your low performers, and sends a demotivating message to the general population: there are no consequences for poor performance, and the reward for hard work is more hard work.

This dynamic was not as toxic when the economy was booming, and there were more financial rewards for the highest performers.

The economic downturn has left organizations leaner and flatter, with fewer financial rewards and fewer promotions to recognize our increasingly taxed star performers.  Top talent is no longer waiting for the employment market to improve to take action.

According to the AP, in April 2010 the number of employees voluntarily leaving their companies outnumbered those who were fired or laid off.  This for the first time since the beginning of the recession. 

There is going to be a mass exodus of the top performers as the economy starts to turn around," a consultant told the AP.

Now more than ever, it is critical that your managers are managing: managing low performers–developing their skillsets, correcting poor performance, or managing them out, while supporting work-life balance for top talent, and boosting initiative among the entire staff.

Are your managers managing effectively? Contact GLFordConsulting for management development, both training workshops and one-on-one coaching.

It’s an important distinction, the issue of ability or willingness, for two reasons.  As stated above, it helps you determine the right course of action to help the employee remedy the issue.  It also helps in making a case for termination, should it come to that.

A friend called me up a few years ago and  asked for my advice.  “You’re an HR Manager, “ he began, “tell me what should I do?”  His manager had said that if he did not start doing X, Y, and Z at work, that he would very likely lose his job.  An immediate change was needed.  He was told he had ample time to demonstrate that he could perform differently and that his manager was committed to his  success.  

“Can you do X, Y, and Z?” was my first question.  He replied that yes, he could make the requested changes.  “And are you going to start doing X, Y, and Z?” was my next question.  No.  He had decided that he wouldn’t.  He stated that he did not respect his manager, and that he disagreed that the change was necessary.  Hmmmmm.  I advised him to start looking for another job while he still had the current one.  He wanted to know if there was no other course of action.  There was none that I could see.  If he was unwilling to make the changes requested by his manager, and if those changes weren’t unethical or illegal, than he would surely lose his job if he refused to make them.

He lost his job 2 months later.

This story has stuck with me as a reminder that when we’re addressing poor performance, we always need to assess whether it’s a question of lack of ability, lack of willingness, or both.  As managers, it is in our best interest to capture any clear evidence of either circumstance in our documentation.  If the employee has the ability to meet expectations, but refuses–or chooses not to expend the energy–it’s a matter of insubordination.  And insubordination—even more than the initial pattern of poor performance—may help us to make the case to HR that termination is the appropriate course of action.

Now an independent external trainer, I hear weekly from one or more participants that “my boss (my colleague, my staff member) is the one who needs to be learning this—not me!”

Recently, I was facilitating a leadership series for a corporate client, and the group was so focused on their frustration with the next level of management that we weren’t making progress in the session.  Finally I said, “Look, your organization has made an investment in this learning for you.  You have a choice.  You can bemoan the fact that you’re frustrated with your managers and wish they were here learning with you, or you can focus on the only thing you actually have influence over: YOUR behaviors, YOUR actions, YOUR decisions.  You can be open to engaging in this process, focus on learning something that will make you more effective, and actively look for what you can do to make your organization better—or you can continue to complain among yourselves about people who aren’t in this room.  What is your decision?”

When we work in the same organization for many years, even the best of us develop mental models that explain which internal divisions, departments, levels of management, and individuals aren’t doing what they should be doing to support the company’s mission.  

These “certainties” regarding whom is to blame for organizational shortfalls help us justify our own shortfalls in the results department.  We complain about other departments and individuals within the safety of our own internal tribes, and in doing so, we let ourselves off the hook for any shortfall in collective results, for not trying new approaches to old problems—who can blame us when our colleagues are the insurmountable obstacles to success?   When these beliefs are pervasive, it can be a significant organizational stumbling block.

“We will focus on what we can do.”  Was the answer from the group in the story above.  This came after a short stunned silence that followed my “tough love” speech.    

Whether I’m offering a 4-day leadership series to middle managers in a high-tech firm, offering a 1-day teambuilding session for a manufacturing firm, or a 4-hour session on managing up for a non-profit, I feel my real contribution to these companies is shifting the participants to a place where they are willing to consider what they themselves can do differently to support their staff, contribute to the team, or strengthen the relationship with their managers.  

When we shift people to a place of personal accountability, we accomplish something more powerful than simply sharing a new tool or teaching a new skill: We leave a group that will spend more time taking positive action back at work than pointing the finger away from themselves.  And that—especially in these tough economic times–is worth the investment of your people’s time and your training budgets.  

As you look at how you’ll spend your training dollars in 2009, don’t forget that personal accountability is the foundation of personal–and ultimately organizational–effectiveness.

• Gain insight into your preferred behavior style at work.
• Build awareness of your strengths.
• Explore when those strengths may become a liability.
• Plan for those instances in which you may need to shift gears to be more effective

To register, e-mail gary@glfordconsulting.com

• Shift your employees to a place where they are more willing to tackle their own conflicts
• Coach your employees on how to broach difficult topics effectively
• Create a culture where managers aren’t called upon to referee

To register, e-mail gary@glfordconsulting.com

• Explore the physiological responses that short-circuit our effectiveness when in conflict
• Learn how to defuse your emotional response when co-workers push your buttons
• Learn a method of broaching difficult conversations without creating defensiveness

To register, e-mail gary@glfordconsulting.com