We Don’t Have to Pick a Fight…

Strangely enough, my emphasis on addressing specific behaviors that are in direct conflict with expected performance standards often seem to be interpreted as insistence on throwing the proverbial baby out with that bathwater… Many supervisors, managers, or even casual readers of some of the work I put out assume that I’m advocating firm and immediate disciplinary action, up to and including termination, every single time someone missteps without any consideration for the reason. In fact, I was recently accused of having “supported the woke culture” with my views on holding people accountable. Ugh, OK…

While I’m most certainly not suggesting that a leader’s only approach to improving accountability and capturing the profit that’s killed when no one is being held accountable is in using swift and stern disciplinary measures, there are indeed times where that does need to happen. Quite frankly though, it shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction. One of the most effective ways I’ve ever seen for building a culture of accountability is by simply having a direct conversation addressing the behavior in question.

Notice I said the behavior in question rather than the individual responsible for the behavior… Don’t misunderstand me here, this isn’t where we call the entire team together to talk about the issue as a group and consider it done. I’ve been in those groups more than a few times and that only serves as an effective way of pissing off the people who were doing their jobs. As leaders, we have to address unacceptable behavior with the individual directly, one-on-one. In doing that though, the best results I’ve ever seen have come from isolating what they did separately from who they are as an individual. This should never be a personal attack!

Unfortunately, I’ve seen far too many folks in leadership roles (team leads, supervisors, managers, or whatever title a company places on them) avoid having these direct conversations until they’re completely fed up, at which point they completely blow their top! Fingers get pointed, accusations are made, character is questioned; you know the routine… And most of that - if not all - could have been avoided by addressing the behavior in question right away, before tempers flared. Even in isolating a specific behavior that’s missing the mark, we’d do well to follow The Platinum Rule by addressing it in terms that matter most to the individual rather than resorting to the “because I said so” approach.

When we take that level of leadership responsibility, showing our teams that we truly care about their performance and that we’re willing to do anything in our power to help them through any issues that may be contributing to the poor behavior we’re addressing (more on doing that soon), we can maintain a high level of accountability while still showing how much we value the individual. Make no mistake though, even when doing everything just right, there will still be times where additional steps are required. If we’ve addressed the issue - both calmly and directly, provided any support possible to resolve it, and our team member continues down the same path, we’ll likely have no other option than to work through the steps in our progressive disciplinary policy. This isn’t usually the first step I suggest because we’re dealing with people. And even if we care nothing for the individual, turnover and recruiting are both profitability killers that we’ve addressed… But if we don’t maintain accountability, we’re allowing the expectations to drop for our entire team and we’re losing their respect in the process!