Have you ever found yourself reluctant to hold an employee accountable because you worry they will leave or quiet quit? Or you let a performance issue fester for fear of not being liked? In this article, we address the common reasons so many managers tolerate poor performance, and what to do instead.

6 Reasons Managers Tolerate Poor Performance

Here’s a gut check if addressing performance issues is hard for you. Do any of these common mistakes sound familiar?

1. Unclear Expectations

You haven’t done the work upfront to define success. So everybody’s frustrated. You’re frustrated with their poor performance, and the poor performer is frustrated with you. Perhaps you’ve tolerated mediocre performance in the past, and now it feels tricky to reset expectations.

Here’s the good news. It’s not too late to reset expectations. Here are two articles filled with practical tips that will help.

How to Practice Start Team Accountability if You Never Have Before

How to Reset Performance Expectations For Better Results 

2. Guilt

You worry you haven’t done enough to support, develop, encourage, build confidence in, empower, or recognize an employee. If that’s true, you’re right-you have more work to do. But if you’ve invested in the employee again and again and it’s still not working, it’s possible that this is not the right fit. Stop feeling guilty. You need to do what’s right for the greater good of the organization, the team, and that person.

If you need help holding accountability or performance feedback conversations, start here.

How to Provide More Meaningful Performance Feedback

And if you need to fire someone with compassion, this will help. How to Be Okay When It’s Time to Fire a Poor Performer

3. False Morale

We’ve seen many managers, what we call “Pleasers” in Winning Well, worried about building morale, who actually destroy it. If everything everyone does is “just great,” the people who really give their “all” will wonder why they do. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve had the rest of the team thank us for addressing poor performance. Of course, such conversations are private, but your team is more astute than you may think.

4. Saving Face

You hired the guy. Perhaps you even convinced your boss that he was “the one.” If you’ve done everything you can do to make it work, but it isn’t going well, it’s far better to admit you were wrong, learn from your experience, and move on. Don’t magnify one poor decision with another.

5. Fear

Maybe you’re understandably a little scared. Perhaps you’re not sure how to approach the situation. There’s often nothing harder to do than address poor performance or remove someone from your team. It’s never easy, but it does get easier with preparation and practice. Practice your conversation with a peer or mentor. Use the INSPIRE method (more here). Plan the conversation, and show up curious.

6. Lack of Perceived Alternatives

I (Karin) can recall countless times in my corporate job when someone would call me for an internal reference for a poor performer they were about to hire.  After I shared a long list of poor performance issues and concerns, the person was hired anyway.

One hiring manager actually told me, “Well, Karin, you have very high standards. I’m not sure your expectations are realistic. I’m sure the person will do just fine.” And then they wouldn’t succeed.

When the labor market is tight or you have a limited set of choices, the answer isn’t to lower your standards. Reinforce what success looks like and establish a plan to help the person get there if they can. And if they can’t, reorganize, adapt, or change how your team functions. Trying to make a bad fit work will only frustrate them, you, and the entire team.

If you’re looking for more tips like this, you might enjoy our first joint book, Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results- Without Losing Your Soul.

Your Turn

What are the biggest mistakes you see managers make when they tolerate poor performance? How do you encourage them to tackle the performance issues head-on?

The post Why So Many Managers Tolerate Poor Performance (and what to do instead) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You take performance management seriously. You care deeply about your team, their results, and their long-term career success. If you’re reading this, it sounds like you’re feeling a bit frustrated and stuck, because your well-intentioned accountability conversations aren’t fixing a repeated issue. If this sounds familiar, today’s Asking or a Friend is for you.

“Karin, there is this person on my team that I really care about and want to be successful. But they have one important behavior that’s SABOTAGING THEIR SUCCESS… and they don’t seem to be able to fix it. I keep having the conversation AGAIN and AGAIN. What can I do? #askingforafriend

Human-centered performance management means giving meaningful feedback that reinforces clear expectations and gives space for emotions, support, and reflection. It’s a two-way conversation that helps the employee identify their own next steps. When you’ve had this conversation, and your employee repeats the past behavior then you know you need to escalate the conversation. Here’s how.

Performance Management with the A.R.T. Method

Let’s Grow Leader’s A.R.T. Method of Advanced Accountability is a popular technique in our foundational leadership development programs. The A.R.T. Method helps you escalate the conversation in a way that continues to build the relationship while striving for results.

Step 1: A – Action

Most feedback conversations start by discussing a specific action. The first conversation you have with someone about their performance should clearly address the specific behavior that is problematic – being late for meetings, dismissing a colleague’s ideas, or not following through on a task. You could use our I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Method to map out this conversation so it’s supportive and collaborative.

Step 2: R – Repetition

So if you’ve had two Action conversations and your team member repeats the behavior, it’s time to move to R-Repetition.

You can still use the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Method, but this time instead of pointing out the problematic action, you will call attention to the repetitive pattern. For example, “I’ve noticed a pattern where you’re arriving late.”

If it’s a repeating pattern, it’s possible the person isn’t aware of their actions and they aren’t noticing the consequences of their behavior. When you address the issue, it makes it clear to them that you notice and can help them identify something they weren’t even unaware of.

The key to this performance management step that can bring about change is to ask for a specific commitment about what they will do differently. Then work together and agree on a time to “schedule the finish.” This means scheduling a time when you’re going to check in on progress and discuss how it’s going. When you schedule the finish, make sure you follow through and check in when the time comes.

Step 3: T – Trust

When you’ve had a recent Repetition conversation and the behavior happens again, you will need to escalate the conversation once more. This time your performance management conversation is about not keeping their commitment and the erosion of trust because of it. When you tell your team member what you’re noticing it won’t be about the original action.

Now the problematic behavior is them not keeping their commitment.

What to say when you have a trust issue

Here’s an example of what you could say if you get to the T – Trust part of the A.R.T. Method:

“Do you remember the commitment you made last Friday? So here’s the thing. I noticed that this week, you didn’t keep your word, and I’m concerned.

Listen, I want to be able to trust you. I know you want to be able to trust me as your leader, as your manager. You’ve got to be able to take my word and bank on it. And I want to have that same relationship with you. Right now, that’s not happening. I want to see you succeed. I want the best for you. It’s important that you achieve all of your goals here, and this is going to prevent that. So what’s happening here? How do you think we can fix it?”

I’m curious, what would you add? What are your best practices for addressing repeating performance issues?

Managers, for a detailed overview of the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Method, see our article How to Provide More Meaningful Performance Feedback.

And if you are ready to accelerate team performance and positive, sustained culture change, check out Team Accelerator, our manager-led program.

The post Performance Management: How to Give Feedback to a Team Member Who Isn’t Changing appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

How Do I Manage Up When Results are Down? #AskingforaFriend

This question came in through our learning lab in one of our live-online leadership development programs.

What’s the best way to “manage up'” when working through employee coaching and improvements?

The question brought back a rush of memories of one particularly impatient boss who wanted every performance issue fixed “yesterday” the “easy way.”

Meaning, “just fire the guy” and move on.  That boss wasn’t particularly close to the complexity of the work.

And, he had a hard time seeing the long-term potential in struggling employees.

So, I learned the art of managing up when results were down the hard way.

Why This is Hard

Coaching for lasting improvement can take a minute. Your employee needs time to try new approaches and learn what works best in different scenarios.

Great coaching requires real connection, vulnerability, and trust. No one wants to feel like every conversation is being followed and tracked by someone outside the room.

And even as your struggling team member is improving, it’s likely they’re still going to screw up from time to time, reinforcing their reputation as a poor performer.  It would be easy for a removed observer to prematurely conclude that your coaching’s no working, and it’s time to move on.

And of course, there’s Murphy’s law at play…even if that customer service rep you’ve been coaching to have more empathy has made major improvements, the one time she gets testy with a customer will inevitably be when your boss is walking by.

You care about your struggling employee. You care about your boss. And, you care about the long-term performance of your team. It’s hard to balance these nuanced relationships as a human-centered leader. But it is possible.

4 Steps to Keeping Your Manager Informed When AddressIng Performance Issues

You need to give that struggling employee feedback, coaching, and support while keeping your manager informed about progress in a way that gives them confidence that you’re doing the right thing for the employee and the business.

1. Set clear expectations with your employee and with your manager

Start with a shared definition of success. Ensure all three of you define what good performance looks like in the same way. Sure, start with the metrics, like making quota or attaining service level or productivity measures. And, also ensure you’re aligned on the behaviors that will lead to success.

Focus on the game, not just the score.

2. Work with your struggling employee on a clear path to improved performance

If you need help with this, these articles are rich with practical tools.

How to Provide More Meaningful Performance Feedback 

How To Coach Employees to High Performance When Time Is Limited

Be sure to establish timelines and check-ins to measure progress.

3. Schedule the finish

The next step to managing up when coaching a struggling employee is to share the high-level plan with your manager and check for understanding to ensure they’re aligned with your approach.

And, here’s the part where you buy yourself the time to make an impact.

Schedule the finish. Get some time on your manager’s calendar when you will talk about the situation again. When your manager knows you have a solid plan AND they know when they’ll get an update, they’ll be less likely to ask you about progress every time they bump into you.  You’ll feel less micro-managed and you have time to help your struggling team member without having to share the play by play.

4. Give them opportunities to repair their brand

This is perhaps the trickiest part of managing up with a once-struggling employee. Even if they’ve worked hard to turn their performance around and they’re nailing their role, Ii’s likely you both still have some managing up to do.

iI’s time to show your manager they’ve really changed.

Marshall Goldsmith gives some good advice on this in our recent Asking For a Friend interview (I’ve included a very short excerpt from that interview below… you can watch the rest of the show at this link.

“It’s much easier to change behavior than to change the perceptions of others. Changing the perceptions of others is hard because we all see each other in ways that are consistent with our previous stereotypes.”

An important part of your role in managing up is to help your manager see the change.

Managing Up: What if The Employee Can’t Turn it Around?

Of course, it’s also possible that despite your best efforts, the performance doesn’t turn around.

If you’ve been following this process, you have good documentation, and you’ve kept your manager informed, you’ve built trust in all directions. It’s time to move forward with the next phase of the performance management process without guilt.

Sometimes letting an employee go is the most human-centered action for all involved.

As a human-centered manager managing up well, you want to support your employees and help them to grow AND give your manager the piece of mind so they don’t need to get overly involved.

Leaders Coaching Leaders: One Secret to Sustainable Leadership Development

The post Managing Up: Keep Your Boss Informed About a Struggling Team Member appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Things improve for a minute. But a week later, they’re back to all the same behaviors.

You’re frustrated, and with good reason. You may feel the urge to take it personally or write them off as a lost cause. But don’t lose hope yet.

Try these questions to take your performance improvement conversation to the next level.

Center Your Performance Improvement Conversation Around These Four Questions

First, take a minute to reflect on the feedback and accountability conversations you’ve had so far. Our I.N.S.P.I.R.E. model for accountability conversations (right) can help. You can read more about that in our Fast Company article here.

After that, ask yourself these questions.

1. Clarity: Do they really know what success looks like?

One good conversation about expectations can prevent fourteen “Why didn’t you?” conversations.

Ask them to describe what success looks like in their role, in terms of metrics and specific behaviors.

If you find that you haven’t been clear, here’s how you can reset your expectations.

Be as specific as possible. Avoid generic phrases like: “A positive attitude,” “More customer focus,” and “Be more strategic.” Translate those into tangible, measurable behaviors.

If this feels hard, imagine you took out your phone and took a video of what successful actions and behaviors look like (of course, don’t actually do this), but you get the idea.

2. Conflicts: Where are they stuck?

Listen closely. It’s easy to discount the “reasons” they can’t improve: overwhelm; competing priorities; mixed messages; frustrating peers; difficult customers …

Some of this may feel like excuses. But, underneath that emotion and deflection, may lay your breakthrough opportunity to help them improve.

And if you can help them find a breakthrough, don’t forget to look for opportunities to see if the rest of the team needs more help in this area too.

3. Confidence: Do they believe they can do it?

Okay, here comes the hard part.

If you don’t think they can get there from here, they will see that lack of confidence a mile away.

First, do a gut check. Are you giving them the benefit of the doubt? Do you believe this is possible? (If not, be sure you’re documenting the situation carefully and involving HR.)

But if you are coming from a place of “Yes you can,” be clear on why. Show them examples of how they’ve done this before. Break down the goals into bite-size behaviors. Start small and be impressed.

4. Conviction: Are they committed to making the change?

If this is the challenge, start by asking questions.

Why do they choose to work here?

What makes “here” feel great?

Connect what you’re asking of her to why it matters to the company and to them.

Holding successful performance improvement conversations takes practice. Consistent focus on these four areas will help you get to the root cause of the issue more quickly.

And of course asking, “What else can I do to be most helpful?” is always important. And then, really listen to what she has to say.

Your turn

What are the most important questions to ask when holding a performance improvement discussion?

See Also: How to Provide More Meaningful Performance Feedback

The post How to Hold a Better Performance Improvement Conversation appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

When it comes to results—no one can touch him. There’s just one problem. He’s a jerk. How do you manage a strong, arrogant, slightly obnoxious, potentially toxic high-performer?

A Profile of a Slighty Obnoxious High Performer

These potentially toxic high-performers come in all shapes and forms.

• “Dan” is charismatic and handsome, plus two espresso shots of attitude. He’s good. No question. But he doesn’t know it all and he’s shutting down ideas that matter. 
• “Megan”  has a great purse, an MBA from a top 25 school, and a sarcastic streak that makes everyone in her wake feel like crap. She’s fantastic to put in front of the board. But, she’s churning and burning through high-potential employees.
• “Joe” can out-gun anyone with a spreadsheet at twenty paces, but ignores you if you can’t outwit his wittiness. Everyone’s stopped trying. Smart co-workers are shutting down their important insights because they don’t have the energy for the “my data is better than yours” game.
• “Art” knows more about your business than you. He’s seen it all. But instead of helping others learn, he’s constantly talking about how he’s “just about done” with all the rookies. The rookies, of course, are bringing new ideas which he discourages them from sharing. And, he’s keeping his experience to himself.

Perhaps you didn’t even choose these potentially toxic high-performers. But, here they are. On your team. They drive results, with implications.

Your bosses’ boss might even love them—after all, they’re at the top of every stack rank report they see. So coaching feels tricky.

What should you do?

Door Number 1:  Ignore the issues. Be grateful for the results. And pray this potentially toxic high-performer moves on before they do too much damage to the team.

OR

Door Number 2:  Be the courageous leader who has the tough conversation, and helps them understand their impact while helping them develop their full potential.

Sadly, I see so many “leaders” grit their teeth, complain to their spouse, and slip quietly through door number 1, praying that the next leader who manages this obnoxious high-performer will have more courage.

Why?

• “After all, this guy clearly has potential.” (Read that: “I’m worried I’ll work for him someday and don’t want to burn any bridges.”
• “I’m not sure I’m as smart as him. I’d better shut up and listen.” (Read that: “I’m insecure.”)
• “Sure, she’s obnoxious, but she gets damn good results, and goodness knows we need that right now.”  (Read that: “Why not? Everyone else does.”)
• “She’s ticking off all her peers, but … maybe she’ll raise the bar.” (Read that: “Crap, maybe this confident humility stuff is all bunk, time to unsubscribe from LGL.”)

6 Tips for Managing a Slightly Obnoxious High-Performer

What To Do Behind Door #2

If you’re leading for long-term success, head directly to door number 2.

1. Show Concern

Start with acknowledging your potentially toxic high performer’s competence and impact. Something like, “You’re smart and your results are on fire.  And, I’m deeply concerned that the way you’re showing up is going to derail your career. Would you be open to some exploration around this issue?”

2. Show Your Potentially Toxic High Performer the Data and Get Specific With Examples

If you’re the boss, your opinion will matter a bit, but not if they see you as a temporary stepping stone to tolerate. Offer a 360-degree assessment, or have him do it himself,

Or as author Julie Winkle Giulioni says, ask them to talk to others and bring you a “plateful of feedback.”

The more you can help them understand the specific behaviors that are ticking others off, the easier it will be to get their attention. It’s quite possible your high performer is so busy working on results, they’ve lost the peripheral vision necessary for positive relationships.

I’ll never forget the time my boss said to me. “Your peer had a great idea in the last meeting. But you just passed right over it to share yours. You’re not the only one with good ideas around here. How hard would it have been to take out a pen and write that down?”  Yikes.  Amen.

3. Offer Help

When you’re passionate and great at what you do, it’s tricky to see how annoying you are. Ask for permission to point it out the next time. Invent a secret signal if needed.

4. Set a Goal

Get your high-performer focused on a specific goal of supporting another on the team and advocating for their ideas. Build that into their formal development plan. Even if they are not interested in being a people manager, being difficult to work with is never a good long-term career strategy.

5. Help Them Navigate the Narrative

If their intentions are good, but they’re coming across a bit braggy, tell them about this Harvard research.  Why Managers Should Reveal Their Failures (HBR Ascend),  and help them with their internal re-branding strategy.

6. Consider Making the Tough Choice

It’s easy to get sucked into the trap of thinking you have no choice but to accept the behavior of this potentially toxic high-performer. Be sure you’re looking at the bigger picture and the drain on the productivity and morale of the rest of your team. Are you losing other “A players” (or even solid B players) because they don’t want to work with this person? See also: Why Leaders Should Not Be Afraid to Fire Their Top Performer (Inc.)

Your turn.

What advice do you have for managing a potentially toxic, high-performer?

See Also:

What To Do When a HIgh-Performer Quits

7 Things Your High-Performing Employees Want to Hear You Say

The post How to Manage a Strong, Arrogant, Maybe Even Toxic High-Performer appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

For most managers, the only thing they dread more than going to their own end-of-year performance appraisal is holding end-of-year feedback discussions with their team. Why?

Because the performance appraisal system is unnatural by design. Imagine if we burdened our home relationships with some of the same formal systems we impose at work.

“Honey, I’ve decided to give you an end-of-year appraisal. Your cooking has improved and you’re taking out the trash without being reminded. So, you get an “Exceeds Expectations” in domestic duties. ”

But you’ve been so stressed lately, and it’s been months since you brought me flowers, I have to give romance a B-.”

And if your company is using a stack ranking system, made worse with forced rating quotas,  it’s even more tricky.

I’ll save the rant about these old-school performance appraisal systems for another day, Chances are you’re already neck-deep in preparing for these required conversations. Instead, I’ve collected a list of the most infuriating phrases many employees have told me have ticked them off (or made them quit).

6 Infuriating End-Of-Year Feedback Phrases That Crush Morale

1. “I don’t have much end-of-year feedback for you. You know you’re doing great.”

Why it’s infuriating: You know who hears this? The people that have been killing themselves going above and beyond expectations. Every single week I hear from high-performers who feel overlooked and are starving for recognition.

What to Do Instead: If they’re doing great, be sure to give specific end-of-year feedback about what was so great and why it mattered. Also, care enough to offer specific ideas for how they can grow and do even better. See Also:  7 Things Your High-Performing Employees Long to Hear You Say.

2. “I rated you as meets expectations for your end-of-year feedback. Your performance really was an “exceeds” but I had to make the math work out.” Or, even worse, “I could only have one in that category.”

Why it’s infuriating: Basically, this is saying, I’m rating you lower than you deserve. And nothing is more infuriating than injustice in your performance appraisal.

What to Do Instead: It’s always best to stay focused on results and behaviors, rather than the rating. But if an employee is frustrated, they may be so distracted by the rating it’s difficult for them to think about anything else. Be clear about the criteria that you used to calibrate performance and where they met and exceeded those criteria and opportunities to improve in the future. Stay away from comparisons to other employees, or blaming other people for the rating they received.

3. “I know we haven’t had a chance to talk about this before, but _____”

Why it’s infuriating: Nothing new should be surfacing in end-of-year feedback. And yet so frequently employees tell us they were completely blindsided by observations of behaviors from earlier in the year. It’s frustrating because it feels like a gotcha game instead of constructive feedback that they could have acted on if they had heard about it sooner.

What to Do Instead: Never bring up new feedback in a performance review. Be proactive in sharing observations as close to when it occurred as possible.

4. “Well, I don’t really have any specific examples, but it’s become a real issue.”

Why it’s infuriating: End-of-year feedback without specifics feels unfounded; not to mention generalized feedback with no examples would never hold up if they challenged you in a formal way (e.g. lawsuit).

What to Do Instead: Be sure you can offer specific examples of the behavior for any feedback you are giving. 

5. “I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from other people about your performance in this arena. Who?  I’m not at liberty to say. Have I noticed it, well, no but everybody is telling me about it.”

Why it’s infuriating: You lose credibility and trust by acting on feedback you’ve heard thirdhand—you’re essentially saying, “I trust them and doubt you.” Ouch.

What to Do Instead: Find a way to observe the issue yourself. Or encourage the person with the feedback to offer it directly.

6. “Just write up your accomplishments and I’ll sign it.”

Why it’s infuriating: Why bother? “You want me to do YOUR job?

What to Do Instead: Have them submit their accomplishments, and then invest the time to share your observations and a well-thought-through commentary. Make the effort to ensure they feel seen and understood.

Done well end-of-year feedback conversations can go a long way in building trust, aligning expectations with results, and laying the foundation for a great start to the new year. If you show up with confident humility, focused on both results and relationships.

How to Give a Better Performance Appraisal

Other Helpful Tools For Your End-Of-Year Feedback and Performance Appraisal Sessions

If you’re on the other end of these performance reviews, this ones for you.

Performance Review: How to respond to frustrating or lazy performance feedback

Virtual One-on-One Meetings: How to Encourage More Collaboration

How to Prepare for a Better Development Discussion

Creative Ways to Develop Your Managers

Stop Asking “How Can We Improve?” Research Says the Best CEOs Do This When Asking For Feedback

The post Avoid These Infuriating Phrases in End-of-Year Feedback and Performance Appraisals appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Ground Yourself Here Before Giving Feedback

Steve had thrown every ounce of energy into launching his most important strategic initiative. Everyone knew what was important and why, and his five times, five different ways communication strategy was more like thirty by thirty.

He ensured all the best people were on it, and yet the program was still struggling to gain traction.

“I was getting so frustrated about the lack of sales of our new strategic program. I had reinforced why this was so important to our company so many times, I was sick of hearing myself talk about it. But the service reps were struggling to convert inquiries to sales. Then one day, I just went into the contact center and took a few customers’ calls myself. The questions were tough. I realized how hard our new program was to explain. I learned that our training had not prepared our reps to take those calls. No amount of explaining “why this program mattered” would help until the reps knew how to answer our customers’ questions.”

– Steve, CEO Home Services Company

Steve understood what best-selling author and vulnerability expert, Brené Brown calls “being in the arena.”

“If you’re not in the arena, also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

–Brené Brown

Steve realized before his team could take his feedback seriously, he needed to experience this initiative from inside “the arena.”  This meant being willing to face the discomfort of hearing what customers really were experiencing himself. His reps needed to know that HE KNEW how hard it was and that they were in this together.

This is far different than micro-managing. I’m not advocating getting in the weeds and staying there. That won’t benefit your mission, you or your team. What I’m talking about here is showing up vulnerable, knowing that you don’t have all the answers and taking some risks to figure it out. Going first, particularly when it’s hard. Never making your team look bad so you can look good.

Show Me You’re With Me

Every week, I hear stories of wimpy managers, asking their teams to take risks so they don’t have to.

• “If a meeting is going to be contentious, my boss always finds a way to send me instead of going herself. And when I get back she’s full of feedback of how I could have positioned our argument differently.”
• “My manager is too scared to advocate for what we need, she puts politics over progress every time.”
• “We’re trying to get this project moving but we’re all getting different marching orders from our supervisors. When we suggest they work out the issues at their level, they say the decision is “above their paygrade and they don’t want to make waves.”

Oh, and here’s one I got from a previous boss, “Karin I think it’s a great idea, but it might not work. You can do it if you want, but,  if it fails or if the senior team disapproves of your approach, I’m going to pretend I didn’t know about it.”

I bet you can guess how that story ends, It worked. And he was happy to act like he was for it all along.

Gut Check

Does your team look forward to your visits? Are they excited to see you walk through the door?

What do you do when numbers dip, do you focus on the game, not just the score?

Does your feedback come from a place of judgment or support?

Don’t ask your team to fight battles, if you’re scared of the war.

Your turn.

How do you show up in the arena?

What makes it hard?

The post The Most Important Factor To Ensure Your Feedback is Heard appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

So you give them more coaching, this time “louder” either literally, or through progressive discipline. But even so, nothing changes.

What’s going on?

Most employees don’t come to work hoping to screw up.

They want to improve. So why does so much coaching fall on deaf ears?

5 Reasons Your Coaching Falls on Deaf Ears

When we ask employees in our training programs why it’s hard to hear their manager’s feedback, here’s what they tell us.

1. “I’m overwhelmed.”

“I’m trying to do better, I really am. But it’s all just too much. Every time we meet, he’s giving me something else to work on. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get it right, so I just ignore him and do the best I can.”

If you want real change, focus on one behavior at a time.

2. “I’m watching how it REALLY works around here.”

“My boss keeps telling me my customer courtesy credits are too high—that I’m costing the business too much money. So I stopped giving credits. But when my customers get mad, they escalate to my supervisor.  And guess, what? She ALWAYS gives them the credit! She’s the hero, and the credit goes against my numbers and I still end up on progressive action. I can’t win. So now I’m back to giving them the credit.”

If you want your employees to hear your coaching, be sure you’re following your own standards.

If there are reasons you make exceptions, be sure you clearly differentiate and explain the thought process, so they can follow consistent parameters.

3. “I don’t know how.”

“My manager says I need to be more strategic. That sounds awesome. I’m all for that. But what does that mean? How do I do that?”

Be sure your coaching is specific and actionable. Explain what success looks like in terms of behaviors.

4. “I disagree.”

“My supervisor keeps asking me to do this, but I just don’t think it’s right. It will have a negative impact on MY customers. I’ve tried to explain my concerns, but she just keeps citing policy, and that this decision is ‘above my pay grade.'”

Sure, we all have to implement policies we may not agree with, the important factor here is to really listen to the concerns and explain why. 

AND to help challenge the status quo when it doesn’t make sense. 

5. “I’m confused.”

“I’m not really sure what’s important, because everything seems to be. I feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions.”

Help your employees sort through the noise and stay focused on what matters most.

Coaching is an art. If you’re not getting the results you want, talk to your employee. “I’ve noticed, that even though we’ve talked about this before, you’re continuing to ______ (insert behavior here.) I really care about you and want you to be successful. What’s going on? Why do you think this is still happening?”

And really listen to their response.

A Few More Articles to Help Your Coaching and Performance Feedback

Fast Company: This 7 Step Guide For Dishing Out Feedback is Completely Idiot-Proof

What Do I Do if They Cry?

Pushover No More: It’s Never Too Late to Start Practicing Team Accountability

The post 5 Reasons Your Employees Ignore Your Coaching appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Recently we were working with senior leaders in a global company who faced a challenging morale problem. They hired talented capable people who were producing good work – but their talent was leaving. Leaders at every level were frustrated at the forced ratings performance management system.

Tracie, the Senior Vice President of Product Management, summarized the problem: “We’re wasting time and energy competing against each other. I’ve got good people on my team and I’d keep every one of them, but I have to rate everyone on a bell curve – so someone gets told they’re not doing a good job even when they are. No wonder they leave.”

It goes by many names: forced rating, stack ranking, and bell curves. You rate people’s performance by comparing them to one another. Those who finish lowest in the ratings are put on performance improvement plans, aren’t recognized for their performance or are even told to leave.

These systems are appealing because it seems like the formula (keep your top performers, replace the low) will ratchet up performance as everyone competes to be at the top of the ratings.

Problems That Prevent Performance

In practice, however, these forced ratings systems run into real-world challenges. There are several problems with stack ranks and bell curve rating systems:

• You create contradictions as you hire great employees, but then tell a segment of them that they’re not great after all.
• You create internal competition rather than outward competition.
• You create strong incentives to game the score rather than play the real game of serving your customer.
• You’re asking people for their least-best effort (what they have to do to stay alive) rather than their true best.
• Leaders don’t learn how to lead and manage for sustainable results.
• Managers aren’t allowed to reward genuine performance when talented performers end up on the low end of the rank.

Forced rating systems are helpful when a leader needs to jumpstart a large organization that’s caught in a morass of sloth, no accountability, and poor execution at every level. A quick ranking to identify truly poor performance and remove it from the organization sends a message that things are changing.

In essence, forced rankings are used to compensate for poor leadership. Successful frontline and middle-level leaders frequently succeed despite, not because of, forced ranking systems. These systems become another barrier they have to overcome on the way to sustained results.

Forced ratings are an attempt to compensate for poor leadership.

For the long-term, however, the answer to sustained transformational results isn’t forced rankings. If the problem is poor leadership, it should be fairly obvious: fix the problem.

Motivate Your Team: The Alternative to Forced Ratings

If you’re struggling to reboot the leadership in your organization, or if you’re a team leader who wants to transform and sustain breakthrough results, start here:

• Hire fantastic people.  Identify the competencies your top performers share in common and interview for those traits.
• Cultivate and create systems that help top performers to excel. What is the number one frustration that prevents your team from excelling? What can you do to remove it or lessen its disruptive impact?
• Align compensation with what you really want. If you need a team to perform at an objective level of excellence, compensate them for that performance. Don’t turn the team against itself with artificial comparisons that don’t benefit the work that’s done for your customers.
• Invest in your leaders and managers – formally or informally, with budget or without the budget. No excuses. Give your managers and leaders the tools they need to succeed. If you need a place to begin, check out the free Let’s Grow Leaders Facilitator’s Guide that accompanies Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul.
• At a minimum, equip and expect yourself and your managers and leaders to:
  • Set clear, shared, mutually understood expectations that include purpose & meaning and the MIT behaviors that lead to success.
  • Train and equip their people to perform well.
  • Hold themselves and their people accountable.
  • Help team members to grow with training, coaching, encouragement, and challenge for high performers.
  • Celebrate success.
  • Hold leaders accountable for their results and how they achieve them. I often see senior leaders talk about how they expect their team leaders to perform, but they never actually reinforce the behaviors or hold their direct reports accountable.

Your Turn

Remember, you can’t replace the work of a human leader with a formula. Invest in your leaders and hold them accountable for leading.

Leave us a comment and share your thoughts about forced ranking systems or your #1 tip to make them unnecessary.

The post Forced Ratings – Awful Problems and What Leaders Do Instead appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

She gave me the gory behind-the-scenes view: a few apathetic employees were fully taking advantage of a system that had let them get away with ridiculous performance for too long. She was a new supervisor and knew what was right. Apparently her instincts had been reinforced in our class that night. But the situation felt difficult to reverse. She shrugged and said, “It’s probably because they’re millennials.”

I laughed, “Uh…you do realize YOU are a millennial. right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she acknowledged, “but I’m a DIFFERENT kind of millennial.”

Of course she is. Every millennial is.

Whatever your generation, I’d bet money you don’t feel like you fully fit the stereotype.

Don’t let generational labels and stereotypes screw up your ability to build a winning team. 

What Every Employee Needs

All this talk of the millennial situation is aggravating the perceived “generation gap.” It happens every time a new crop of growing leaders gains traction.  The truth is, the problem she was describing was not generational. It was a hard-core, poster-child example of weak expectations, exacerbated by low-reinforcement and no consequences.

I had those same slippery characters working for me when I was 26. Oh sure their names and contexts were different, but I recognized the story. Back then, I was a gen-Xer trying to manage gen-Xers (I even had to take a course on managing gen-Xers before I could move into management). I recall telling the trainer I was a DIFFERENT kind of gen-Xer.

Yes, we need to understand and value the millennial generation. They bring insights and values we may not understand.

For example, I was all ears when my informal millennial coaches (employees in my organization at the front lines who I specifically put on my informal board of directors to tell me the truth) told me how to become more trusted and accessible to the front lines: Stop wearing a suit and heels to the call centers–it was too intimidating; bring my humor to the next corporate video; and for God’s sake watch some TV every now and then so I can chime in on the break room small talk. It worked. Sure there are few things you can do to be more relevant to the masses.

But the truth is, it didn’t work because they were millennial. It worked because it was a way to meet people where they are. That wisdom has worked for centuries.

Figure out the easy things you can change to connect better at a broad scale, but never forget that teams are built of unique human beings. 

The next time you’re faced with a “millennial” problem, I encourage you to resist the label and dig deeper. What’s really going on at the individual level? Do they get the big picture, so they have the skills to do the job, are they confident and competent…? You get the picture.

Are you struggling with a difficult employee engagement scene? Please call me at 443 750-1249 for a free consultation.

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