This is possible. OK, I will admit it does not happen in every case! But it is surprising how many times you can have that final meeting with someone and say ‘Regrettably I have no other option left to me other than to dismiss you from this organisation’, hand over the formal letter and for that individual to say ‘Thank you’!
How do you create this end to what could so easily be an acrimonious situation? (more…)
My heart sank. I was speaking with a coaching client and they said that there was a new instruction from HR on their Performance Evaluation System – each team manager was to mark 10% of their team as a poor performer and in need of improvement.
Aaarrrhh! Whilst I understand why such an instruction could have been sent out edicts like this rarely work in practice!
Research shows that on average, across a company, 10 – 25% of staff at any one time are in need of feedback in order to improve their performance. So if you, as HR, look over the Performance Evaluation Reports submitted by your line managers and discover that they rate everyone as doing fine – you know you have a problem! (more…)
Sometimes I can forget the impact that just one negative team member can have on a group of people and on the leader. But this was brought home to me once again just the other week whilst delivering a workshop.
Right from the moment this one individual entered the room it was clear that they considered training courses to be a waste of time. Unfortunately, they successfully recruited two of their friends to join them in sitting with backs to the main group, arms folded and whispering amongst themselves.
I attempted to engage with them and to encourage them to make a contribution to the discussions and exercises. But nothing had an impact and their behaviour continued. (more…)
What can you say (and do) when you have presented a skilfully crafted message providing some necessary performance feedback and the response you get are tears?
It is important to realise is that there can be two reasons for tears – the first is genuine emotion and the second is gamesmanship – played to unsettle you enough to drop the whole issue and never feel brave enough to mention it again!! (more…)
It was just a couple of weeks ago when a manager at a workshop came up to me and said that one of his team members had recently told him that she hated, hated her job!
He seemed unsure how to respond and I asked whether he felt it was being said for dramatic effect or for real. He rather thought it was for real.
This is serious! No-one who hates their job will perform it well. But how to respond if a member of the team says something similar to you. (more…)