Solving work problems: Part 1

Many managers avoid dealing with performance problems. Why?

• many people get defensive and upset when they feel their performance is being criticised or attacked, so the manager anticipates a bad reaction.
  
• they expect a bad reaction from their staff.
• they want to stay friendly with their staff.
  
• they are uncomfortable in the role of supervisor.
  
• they are reluctant to make assessments about their staff’s performance.
  
• staff “attack back” pointing out multiple failures in the supervisor’s behaviour or in the organisation.
  
• staff dispute what the manager is saying about their performance, and accuses the manager of victimisation, discrimination or even harassment.
  
• last time they tried they felt they were going round in circles and not achieving the best result.

When you have a staff member not performing to the agreed standards you need to take action, but sadly many managers don’t do it well.

Talking to staff about performance

Managers must be able to discuss work performance with staff, especially poor performance. They need to monitor the performance of staff and assess the actual level of performance – referring to the standards expected. These standards should have been set together. This is the basis of performance appraisal.

If, for whatever reason, a person’s actual performance is below the standard expected, managers and supervisors need to talk to their staff about solving these performance problems. Managers must be able to solve performance problems.

The key behaviour that separates excellent from less effective managers is performance monitoring, or the constant gathering and evaluating of performance information. But discussing poor work performance is one of the most difficult management functions. At management training courses, the same questions are often raised:

• What do I do when a staff member isn’t performing?
  
• I’ve tried to talk to them and it doesn’t help – what should I do?
  
• How can I solve ‘personality clashes’ that affect the team’s work?

Any evaluation of review of performance must be linked back to performance, or job planning. If a staff member doesn’t know what is expected, if proper performance planning hasn’t taken place, then the performance review will be difficult.

These are the main elements of the ‘performance management’ cycle:

1. Performance or job planning
2. Doing the job
3. Performance review

The right level

Choose the right type of action when solving performance problems.
The first level that should be attempted is a ‘casual comment’. If a staff member is not performing up to scratch in some aspect of the job, a ‘casual comment’ may be enough to solve the problem.

If that doesn’t work, the second level is ‘performance counselling’. This is a collaborative process whereby the manager and the staff member try to solve the problem together. Performance counselling is the level that requires the greatest skill on the part of the manager.

If this fails to solve the problem, the third level is to discipline the person. This should be used as a last resort, and basically involves punishing them.

Performance counselling

Peter Quarry, psychologist, first presented a popular three step model in the Improving Performance series of videos.

• Step 1. What’s the problem?
• Step 2. What’s causing the problem?
• Step 3. Solving the problem.

What’s the problem?

The first step is to be clear about just what the problem is. So managers must know what the standards required are, and must also know about a staff member’s actual level of performance, so that they can accurately determine the gap in performance.

In communicating with a staff member there are four key skills:

1. Don’t blame – It may not be his or her fault. Blaming first gets people defensive and that’s the last thing you want. It may be that you or the company have contributed to the problem by not providing the resources, training, template, examples, early feedback, etc for the person to fully understand the quality or standard necessary to achieve. So be prepared to say “Maybe we have contributed to this by not providing sufficient training” or “I may have made it hard for you by not being available in the first few days” or “I would like to apologise for not offering the support you needed to get this right”.

2. Be specific and have evidence – Feedback should be specific and relate to a person’s work performance and behaviour. Sometimes, the person knows that his or her work performance may be below standard, and this makes the feedback process much easier. Never give feedback in vague or unclear terms as this can lead to defensiveness and ambiguity. Feedback should be about what a staff member has achieved or done. If you start saying something general, vague or inappropriate like “Your attitude is very negative” immediately correct yourself by adding “I’m sorry, that’s vague, let me give you an example. This morning at the team presentation you cut across Sue before she had finished, laughing and saying it would never work, and she was immediately upset.”

Instead of telling someone they are “always late” be specific and say you were late back from lunch yesterday by almost half an hour which meant someone else had to wait to take their break, and you arrived 20 minutes after the meeting had started this morning.”

If the person disagrees with the feedback, back up with examples.

3. Gain agreement – You need to get agreement that there is a problem with their work performance. If the staff member doesn’t agree they will be unmotivated to listen.

If the person disagrees that they are performing below the required standard, it is difficult for the supervisor to continue talking with them about how to improve their performance. It becomes almost impossible to help someone to solve a problem if they do not feel that a problem exists. The manager needs to assertively say “so you agree that there is a problem in relation to your performance?”

In next week’s blog I will provide more tips on the process of dealing with poor performers. If you are a manager and you don’t get this process right – not only do you have a lesser performing staff member but you are likely to lose the respect of other members of the team for not fixing the problem.

View video clip: Solving Work Problems.

Eve Ash is a psychologist and film producer, having co-produced with Peter Quarry the Improving Performance Series of videos and many others on performance management and leadership.