I am constantly amazed by the speed with which managers will move to a formal process, either a workplace investigation or a formal performance management process. They seem to think that the formal process will deliver the necessary positive outcome… but it doesn’t.
A senior manager asked me the other day how many formal processes have I seen that ended with a positive outcome. Keep in mind that I’ve been working in the people and performance space for nearly 30 years. I replied that I had never, not once, seen a formal process end with a positive outcome.
Lets take a second to define a positive outcome.
In a perfect world, a positive outcome would mean that the performance or conduct issue would be resolved , and the two parties, usually a manager and employee, come back together and are able to continue to work together in a safe, respectful and productive way.
In theory this is possible, or should be, but in reality it almost never happens. The reason is that as soon as you start a formal process the relationship becomes adversarial. It’s the employer, and the manager, imposing a process on an employee in order to ‘fix a problem’, the problem being the employee.
Can you think of any time in your life when you enjoyed being told that you are not good enough? That you need to change? That unless you change there will be consequences? Mostly negative ones?
Employers, HR departments and managers will tell you that the process is restorative not punitive, that it’s designed to help the employee improve, and that it’s about procedural fairness. Of course, they aren’t on the receiving end of the proverbial pointy stick. The employee’s perspective is very different.
What if we tried a different approach? What if we tried relating to the employee as a human being who has all the same fears and insecurities that we do? What if we started with the assumption that almost nobody wakes up in the morning and decides that they are going to come to work and cause trouble or do a lousy job? What if instead of flexing our ‘manager muscles’ we put the ego aside and approach the issue with curiosity and kindness?
What if we stopped having “performance discussions” and started having “check ins” instead?
Instead of asking “What went wrong?”, we could say “Hey I noticed you are not your usual self this week, what’s going on? Are you okay?”.
This is going to be a totally different discussion. This is going to be two human beings who care for each other and want the best for each other having a conversation, rather than a boss and a subordinate discussing performance deficits.
Start leading your people instead of managing them. It’s going to feel better, both for you and for them, and you are going to start seeing some amazing changes in your team. Positive changes guaranteed.
The Workplace Coach 
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