Performance Management Discussions – not for the weak of heart, but vital to drive results & grow your business
Posted by John Sanford on Mon, Oct 17, 2011 @ 01:51 PM
Performance discussions with employees are probably one of the toughest parts of being a business owner or manager, but not addressing issues can hold back your business.
Procrastination – often we hope that be giving someone time they will just “get it”, “figure it out”, or maybe in worse case scenarios, just “go away”. If you are willing to let fate decide the success of your business, go for it, but like a child trying to learn the game of checkers by just observing, the end result will generally be frustration on both sides of the board. At times we might feel we are being “nice” by not addressing the situation, but under the category of “no good deed goes unpunished”, this is not an area where putting it off is either the nice or right thing to do.
Put yourself in their shoes. Maybe in a past position you were the one not meeting expectation and weren’t provided clear, or maybe any, feedback to that effect. It might have been a work task, school subject, an extra-curricular activity, or even a personal relationship - did you improve, or by the time it was addressed was it too late? Looking back, wouldn’t you have liked an opportunity “get it” with the appropriate feedback, guidance and/or training?
Often this is the case – we wait until we become so frustrated the only change we see fixing the problem is to remove someone from that position, possibly even letting them go. If letting them go is going to be a surprise to them, it means we haven’t done our job as leaders. From the employees’ perspective, they may be just as frustrated as you, but not willing to ask for help for fear of appearing inexperienced or just plain stupid.
As business leaders, it is our job to “lead”, as in the following definitions: to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort; to conduct by holding and guiding: to influence or induce; to guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc.
So, are you leading, or actually getting in the way of your teams' best performance. The vast majority of employees want to do well at their job and feel good about the work they are doing. If they are not satisfying your needs, or their own, nobody is happy.
How important is the success of your business to you? Have those conversations, and if you need help, get it (call us). Compared to the costs of turnover, training a willing employee is one of the best business investments you can make with the fastest ROI available.