Leadership Lessons: The Last Batch

When wrong, admit is as quickly as possible and then move on. That situation will hold you emotionally until you can break free of it. Probably just by simply saying, "I'm sorry."

If it weren't for the needs of the customers, who would need you?

Counseling on undesirable performance. Here is a simple method of doing counseling when someone is not performing to your specifications. (This assumes you have clearly defined your expectations via quality, quantity, and time and confirmed that they understood them)

Question #1: "What was I expecting you to do?"

Question #2: "What did you do?" (You are not attacking them; you are just questioning the results you see.)

Question #3: "How do you explain the difference between the expectation and your results?" By asking them to explain without attacking, you are giving yourself room for something coming up that you didn't expect that legitimately kept them from performing as expected. If nothing came up and they just failed to perform, then your next question is, "How do you plan to make up for it?"

If you keep focusing on them, you are reinforcing the fact that they own the problem of the performance deficiency and have to find a solution.

Helping employees set future performance goals. This can be as simple as asking two key questions:

• "What are your goals (using elements of quality, quantity, and time - QQT) for this performance period?" It must be their goals but you can certainly provide input to stretch them a little or to make sure they include items you want covered.


• "How can I help?" This reassures them you are there to help them be successful but only mention it after they have established their performance goals.

Having a performance review meeting only requires five simple questions.

1. "What were your goals for this past performance period?" Make sure they are based in the QQT elements.
2. "How did you do?"
3. "How do you account for the difference?" If they did better, asking them to account for it becomes a reinforcement of good habits. If they did less, it forces them to account for their insufficient behaviors. Remember, they own the product - good or bad - of their performance.
4. "What are your goals for the next period?"
5. "How can I help?"

When you see undesirable behavior, attack the behavior, not the person. The work product is defective somehow, they are not. Now go back upstream to see what led to the problem behavior. (There is a 90% chance the cause is rooted in something controlled by management.)

Trust is historic. People must learn through your behaviors that they can trust you. Just saying "Trust me" creates suspicion, not trust.

Einstein's Definition of Insanity: "You can't keep doing things the way you always have and expect different results." If you want different results, you must do different things. If something does not work the first time the way you expect, do not try it that way again. Try it with a different sequence of actions.

There are no wrong conclusions, just faulty premises. When things do not turn out as you expected, go back upstream and examine your premises. The error lies there.

Fear is normal. Do not let it paralyze you but channel it into energy to overcome it.

Welcome problems because they have a gift for you. Your challenge is to learn the lesson hidden within. It may be a need for patience, a need to be more detail oriented, not make assumptions about people or events, plan ahead better etc. Unless you unwrap the gift and let it change your behaviors, it will continue to reappear until you do.

There is always time to do what you want to do. Be honest with yourself: if something does not get done, it was not your favorite thing to do. But you always find time for the things you like such as checking sports scores, responding to emails and messages from friends about social events, etc. You may have to learn to like something about it to get it done: even if it is the pleasure of knowing that task isn't hanging over your head anymore!

There is never time to do it right but always time to do it over. Why do we do this?

Hire for attitude, train for skills. You can teach skills but not attitude. A technician who cannot get along with anyone is not useful but a congenial personality whom you can teach technical skills is a treasure. You may have to spend time training them but you will not have to spend time apologizing for them or mending damaged relationships.