How can we approach dealing with unsatisfactory performance?
When your employee doesn’t live up to your performance expectations, you need to sit down with him/her and have a conversation about it. If even the thought of doing this makes you feel uncomfortable, what you can do is work on your core conversation skills, which will give you the competence and confidence to face this difficult conversation.
Even when you feel well equipped to have this conversation, things can still go wrong though. Let me give you and example, by telling you what happened when Mark talked to his employee Chris about not delivering his work on time.
Mark was disappointed with Chris, for he had been working for weeks and weeks on just one project, always reassuring that he was getting on well, but when the deadline was coming closer, it turned out that Chris was not living up to the expectations set and could not deliver the promised results.
Mark then sat down with Chris to have a conversation about his unsatisfactory performance. He made sure that Chris understood that this kind of performance was not acceptable and that he expects better performance next time.
Mark managed to make his point. But this didn’t make Chris change his behaviour - actually, he now felt very uncomfortable raising issues to Mark.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were able to make your stand and did - but the outcome was undesirable and you did not build a stronger relationship with the parties involved? We may end up making a point in our conversations with others, but weakening the relationship in the process. It is critical to recognise that conversations are not about making a point, but making a difference.
To make a difference, conversations need to be real. The goal must be to pursue positive transformations for all parties involved instead of focusing on making a point. This requires us to be mature enough to look at the long-term impact of what we do and say, to be genuine about how we feel and to be trusting of the other person.
Making a Difference, Not a Point
There are three things to be mindful of before you have a real conversation that aims at making a positive difference, not just a point.
1. Adopting an Abundance Mentality
This mental approach requires us to embrace a positive psychological mindset. When confronted with issues or difficulties, people who adopt an abundance mindset see the opportunities and positive changes that can stem from the situation, rather than focusing on the problem. In the case of Mark and Chris, Mark should have gone into the conversation thinking ‘this time, things didn’t work out as planned. But we can now find a way we can collaborate better in future and learn from this experience’. Instead of trying to make his point of not tolerating that kind of performance in the future.
2. Feedback Seeking Behaviours
For real conversations to occur, we must open up to the other person and allow them to convey to us what we do not know about ourselves, also known as our blind spots. The Johari Window concept comes in useful for unravelling facades and blindspots in our behaviours and attitudes, through having real conversations.
This model reflects four perspectives, where each contains information that is either known or unknown by an individual, as well as information that is either known or unknown by others.
In real conversations, we can try to expand the open area as much as possible, for this is where good communication and collaboration can take place. Having both parties be aware of a lot of the information results in less mistrust, confusion and conflict. This area is where an effective real conversation about performance issues can take place. Seeking this kind of open feedback to become aware of our blindspots requires a trusting relationship and the willingness to be vulnerable.
3. Develop Emotional Intelligence Competence
Being aware of one’s feelings, other people’s feelings and the causes of which is the essence of emotional intelligence. Through this, appropriate actions and responses can be initiated to engage the parties involved. Having low emotional intelligence, people tend to act and respond in conversations that result in disengagement and destroying the needed trusting relationship that creates the pathway for real conversations.
On the other hand, having high emotional intelligence, people are more likely to engage in real conversations and demonstrate appropriate actions and responses to keep emotions well contained. They are more aware of emotional and behavioural cues of their counterparts and know how to adjust their responses accordingly, becoming more skilful in tactfully managing difficult conversations.
Imagine Mark had adopted an abundance mindset, tried to open up and seek feedback from Chris and focused on the emotional and behavioural cues he was receiving from Chris. Not only would he have focused his efforts on solving the problem, but maybe also found out how his own behaviour contributed to the situation. He could have further adjusted his approach and responses according to the cues he was receiving from Chris about his feelings. Together, they could have had a real conversation that enables learning from past mistakes, building a trust relationship and setting the path for a better future, in this case, better performance.
It’s never too late to start changing the way we converse with other people when dealing with unsatisfactory performance. Having real conversations is as much about admitting we were wrong in how we handled things in the past as it is about pathing a better way forward.
Let us encourage you to start making your conversations real today!
