Addressing the performance management elephant.

Managing difficult conversations

We’ve all done it.

Complained about a challenging employee but then put off having ‘that’ difficult conversation. When, eventually, a meeting is arranged, you dance around the issue but nevertheless believe you’ve made it perfectly clear the employee is underperforming. However, you’re then surprised to see that nothing changes.

The situation is then escalated but the employee is shocked and reveals they had no idea people were unhappy with their work.

At this point, working relationships have been damaged and confidence may be lost between all parties. Potentially permanently, which may lead to losing that person over a problem that could have been easily solved.

Sounds familiar?

We’ve all been in this scenario. It is an uncomfortable situation that, unsurprisingly, find us doing everything we can to avoid that performance management elephant in the room.

The potential knock-on effect of not addressing the issue is the creation of a toxic and gossip-focused culture that gives colleagues license to say what they like about that employee’s performance. It’s also fair to say that they will also make the not unreasonable assumption, that as nothing has been done about the issue, that it is ok to perform like that – making you, the employer, look as if you have sanctioned that approach

But what if you were to do things differently? What would effective performance management look like?

Feedback and spinach

These two things have a lot in common. For a start they’re both good for everybody, but they also require you to take a leap. If somebody has spinach in their teeth, you want to tell them. It can be awkward but nonetheless, you need to say something.

The same with feedback. It’s only fair to be open and honest. Putting it plainly, if we tell that person they have spinach in their teeth they can actually do something about it.

And this is the crux of the matter, if we tell that employee honestly and openly where the problem lies, they can proactively start making changes. If they don’t know or understand what you’re trying to tell them, how can you expect them to change?

How to have ‘that’ conversation

A performance management conversation is one to prepare for, have everything you need to hand, which includes:

• An up-to-date job description and person specification that clearly lays out the role and what is required of them
• Recent examples of what has gone wrong.  These should focus on the behaviours they are demonstrating
• A crystal-clear outline of any change in behaviour that you expect to see.
• An open mind and open ears. There are two sides to every story

Always hear the other person’s point of view

It’s very easy to get caught in the blame culture trap. Noticing what an employee is doing wrong, but not hearing their side of things. This is not effective performance management.

Instead, start the conversation compassionately by asking questions, such as: How do you think you’re doing? What is going well for you currently and what is going less well. You may be surprised by what you hear and the problem could be the result of a very minor issue.

Getting the employee’s perspective could also show:

• That the issue could be down to a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication and therefore easily resolved.
•  A clash of workstyles, which can be aligned by understanding each other better and taking steps to address these differences.
• That the parameters of their role have changed and that their job description needs to be updated accordingly

Let’s talk turkey, managing teams is not easy, but as a manager or leader it’s vital that your job is to regularly feedback, to sometimes tell, to coax and guide to get the best out of people.

Active performance management

This approach removes the need for difficult conversations. Updating, encouraging and openly feeding back as you go ensures all parties are clear on where they stand and what they need to do to improve.

This leads to a more fluid and open relationship, whereby the employee can adapt and evolve in their role. However, if this approach doesn’t garner any positive changes, and it looks as though it could be a capability or misconduct issue, then this will need a more formal meeting.

By letting that employee become the object of criticism and gossip is not only unfair, but you could have an outstanding employee there who just needs to make a few adjustments. Not to mention the savings on attrition costs. But if you don’t face that elephant head on, you may never know.