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Leaders and Managers often ask us, ‘What do you do when you have tried to coach and counsel an employee about a performance concern, and the employee has not responded? Unfortunately, we see far too many cases where the leader hasn’t, in good faith, tried to coach the employee or to put the leader’s concerns into words. Often, leaders look for a quick fix alternative to what is perceived as a difficult and painful confrontation. We have also learned from first-hand experience that management coaching is not a one-shot effort. It takes regular ongoing discussions and experiences to achieve the level of support and cooperation needed. When you have truly exhausted all your good-faith efforts to coach an employee into change, you have the right to move to the next best alternative, a coaching based solution. In certain situations, employees have grown accustomed to and dependent on heavy authority in the workplace, or they just don’t feel attached to the job or organization. We are not advocating that the leader wait for someone to pass out a permission slip to try a different approach; rather, the leader should tell the employee that the management coaching approach hasn’t worked and it is time to take a different path. Probably the best thing a leader can do is literally call a time-out, pull back, and reexamine the entire interpersonal/working contract or agreement with the employee. The leader needs to reconsider the basic assumptions and understanding about the employee’s role and terms of employment in the organization. This is a major renegotiation effort. It is very possible that the job demands or personal expectations and objectives of the employee or leader have changed sufficiently that a real pressure point has been created in the leader/employee relationship. Remember, a social contract between a leader and employee works as long as there is “mutual consent and valid consideration” for both parties. If a new agreement and shared vision of common goals can be reached, then a new state of leader/employee stability and equilibrium will be achieved. If not, the leader and employee should begin to explore and plan a way to separate effectively. Some leaders say they can’t get along without the employee. No problem – you simply need to look for creative ways to restructure the employee’s job or reassign or retrain the employee to cut your losses and limit your exposure. You may consider “down-sizing” the employee’s role to fit the needs of the situation. Another strategy is to pursue a path or formal disciplinary or probationary action. Obviously this is riskier; it may be a path of no return in the sense that cultivating a healthy relationship in a climate of hostility and possible resentment, anger, and embarrassment over disciplinary action is difficult. You may be forced to pursue this path to the unpleasant end of a separation, the ultimate challenge for any leader. The other thing you may consider is to take two aspirin, grin and bear it, and go on lots of short vacations.
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More Articles:1. Performance Reviews That Actually Improve Performance By Jan B. King Employee performance reviews are one of the most dreaded tasks by most managers. It is hard to win here – you can never say enough good things, and one word of criticism is generally the only thing they will remember.Taking the easy way out and just documenting the positive will cause you a lot of trouble if you ever need to fire the employee.The only way this ever gets better is with a lot of practice, and a pretty thick skin. Think about it this way: a bit of feedback that no one else has th… 2. Communicate and Prosper How much has poor communication cost your company in the past twelve months? Chances are, you have no idea. Chances are even better it's a lot more than you can afford.But you won’t find the numbers in the financial statements or year-end departmental reports. Nothing shows up saying 'lost productivity due to miserable meetings' or 'missed business opportunities through sorry selling skills' or 'employee quit because there's no communication around here.'Why? Because most people aren't sure what… 3. Counseling Interviews for the Marginal Employee By Andrew E. Schwartz ACTIVE LISTENING: The most frequent cause of failure in therapeutic counseling interviews is the interviewer’s tendency to talk too much. Numerous studies have shown that in counseling interviews the average manager will talk as much as 85 percent of the time. For a counseling interview to serve its purpose of drawing out responses from the employee, the interviewer must be an effective listener, not a talker. The manager must know how to ask questions which force the employee to speak about h… 4. Managing Monsters in Meetings - Part 2, Multiple Conversations Side conversations ruin meetings by destroying focus and fragmenting participation.Approach 1: Ask for cooperationStart by asking everyone to cooperate. Look at the middle of the group (instead of at the talker) and say:'Excuse me (pause to gain everyone's attention). I know all of your ideas are important. So, please let's have one speaker at a time.''Excuse me. I'm having difficulty hearing what [contributing participant] is saying.''There seems to be a great deal of interest for this issue. C… |
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