Coaching, Not Condemnation

Creating a legacy through our core values requires us to set clear (and high) expectations for our team members. Maintaining accountability, consistently and across the board, around the behaviors that model those values is an absolute necessity for ever sustaining those expectations. But accountability isn’t directly synonymous with formal disciplinary action; at least it shouldn’t be…

Several years ago, while talking with the owner of a company, one of his supervisors came by his office in a lather about a relatively new employee. The supervisor’s first words were: “I can’t believe you haven’t fired that clown yet!” The owner was caught off guard. He had spoken with the supervisor about that employee’s progress at least weekly over the month and a half since they were hired; I know that for a fact because I was involved in most of those conversations. Each time, the supervisor was at least mildly pleased, if not glowing in his feedback. As we worked to determine what moved the needle so far so quickly, we learned that there had indeed been a number of small issues all along - but the supervisor didn’t feel like any one of those issues were worth the time it would take to address. Unfortunately, not addressing those relatively minor missteps led to the new employee’s adherence to expectations falling off rapidly. It was quintessential case of “give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile,” and that supervisor (like so many others I’ve seen over the years) went from mildly annoyed to full-on pissed off overnight - or at least that’s how it came across to me and the owner of the company.

Had I been the HR Manager for that company, I could have worked with the supervisor and owner to begin documenting the specific issues and addressing each according to the organization’s detailed progressive disciplinary process. Even then though, we wouldn’t have moved straight to “firing that clown” like the supervisor wanted. Whether we’re addressing behavior that clearly violates company policy or dealing with a situation where a team member has just fallen short of one of our core values, a one-on-one conversation is nearly always where we should start. Yes, there are exceptions; some policy violations lead directly to termination - do not pass go, do not collect $200… The same holds true when it comes to our values. But for the most part, our role as leaders should be to guide behavior toward those high (yet sustainable) expectations we’ve set, not actively look for ways to condemn someone for failing to measure up. Quite honestly, many times when that new(er) team member isn’t meeting expectations it’s because we haven’t provided them with the support necessary to do so.

Regardless of the issue, a direct (yet kind) conversation about what missed the mark and how we expect them to change their behavior to meet and exceed our expectations can turn into a great training opportunity. All too often, those are missed completely because “we just don’t have time” to deal with the issue in the moment and frustration builds; gradually until we finally hit a boiling point. In What’s KILLING Your Profitability?, I dedicated two full chapters to the costs businesses deal with daily from high turnover and poor recruiting - which are often lumped together but are truly separate issues that feed each other. For our purposes here, just know it costs far too much to get and keep good people to shirk our leadership responsibility by failing to hold them accountable early on, which in fact tells them we’re actually OK with the poor behavior, then pushing them out the door when we’ve had all we can stand. That’s not leadership! By simply addressing any misstep by detailing how it doesn’t align with our values and detailing what they can do instead to exemplify those values, we create a culture of accountability rather than one of condemnation. As we do this routinely, we have a shot of helping our team members build habits around our company values so we’ll look at some simple steps for that next.