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Performance Conversations

Too often, when a performance conversation is required with a team member, we turn up to the meeting with frustration and an agenda, only to find that we don’t have all the facts and none of our ‘ducks are in a row’. We end up looking stupid, and have to rely on ‘because I said so’, just like a parent at their wits end with a naughty child.

The Platform

Trying to resolve an outcome is often too little, too late. What we can do is identify the source issue, and correct that to prevent a future occurrence. One common source issue in performance matters is the lack of a performance platform.

Do you have employment contracts in place?

Do you have a code of conduct, or equivalent?

Have you mapped your culture, and documented it?

Have your employees seen these and signed a copy?

Can you lay your hands on a copy of their records?

The Conversation

Here we apply Stephen Covey’s principle of ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’. Ensure you have available evidence at hand, and a copy of signed employment documents.

Begin by stating the purpose of the meeting, and clarifying the importance of the discussion. Make no accusations or imply anything. Ask questions to ‘seek to understand’ what happened from the team member’s perspective, and try and identify why it happened. It’s amazing what information can present itself, and how this can impact the next step.

Once clear on the explanation, its time to present evidence, and ‘seek to be understood’. Reiterate the required standard, policy or expectation. Seek agreement, and have a document ready to be signed to this effect by both parties.

Summarise the meeting, clarify the actions from here, and when next this will be discussed or reviewed.

Take this approach, and let me know how you go.

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