How many of us have joked, if it wasn’t for people and customers, business would be easy? Much has been written about how to manage, motivate, discipline, etc., employees. Yet the fundamental issue is we don’t set expectations and communicate performance against expectations with any frequency beyond a periodic performance review.
The challenge isn’t the employee, but their supervisor, manager or director. The feedback isn’t there beyond a periodic forced conversation. Most often we hide from the need to communicate how to make the employee successful. Let’s frame the conversation differently. Rather than as failure why not approach a reinforcement of expectations and how to meet expectations.
Let’s start with the building block of expectations. If they aren’t understood how can the employee be successful? And if they aren’t meeting them, and this isn’t communicated, how can they make required changes in behavior?
Make the employee successful and the organization wins.
If the employee is not a good fit within the organization, both the employee and organization are better off with a change. Clear expectations and frequent feedback will make this obvious to the employee and often lead to a transition beneficial to both the company and employee.
Let’s face these facts and have adult conversations. Communicate regularly about expectations and how to be successful. Don’t hide from these conversations. Make it a daily practice.So let’s engage with them and send them home daily with a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
After all, aren’t we all better off working with people who meet and exceed expectations?
