The Workplace Coach

Let’s say that someone in your team has perhaps been displaying some behaviours that you aren’t overly excited about. What’s your next move? How are you going to address it?

Let’s start by establishing what outcome we are looking for here. This team member is either someone you want to keep, or they are not. You either want to build the relationship and boost their engagement, commitment and loyalty to the team, or you don’t. Here’s the thing though, you need to decide which one it is before you have a meeting with your team member.

Working on the assumption that you want to keep this person, one great approach will be that of the ‘invested observer’.

“Hey I’ve noticed that you’ve been a little off lately, is there anything going on?”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Is there anything you need right now?”

Talk it through, find out what’s going on. Connect with your team member, on a human level, and find out what they need to get back on track. Emphasise how much you value them, the great work they’ve been doing to date, your concern about their recent behaviour.

Now if you don’t care whether this person stays or goes then your approach is almost irrelevant. If you don’t care about the relationship and you are comfortable with the current employment situation becoming a temporary arrangement, then feel free to flex and feed your ego. Go ahead and “be the boss” and tell them how they messed up, how they aren’t meeting your expectations, how they need to do better, how they need to adjust their behaviour, attitude and performance, or else.

Start with the end in mind. The first approach builds the relationship, your personal reputation, and their loyalty and willingness to lift their game. This is probably your preferred outcome.

If you take the second approach it may not be long before you are advertising to fill the role… again. People will come and go, that’s the nature of a workplace but remember, they all talk. Their experience of you, good or bad, will be told and retold over and over again. It’s totally up to you what that story will sound like to others.