When it’s time to talk to a team member about performance or behavior, you’ll get better results if you do it without the adjectives. Your job is to describe the performance or behavior and their results so you and the team member can have a conversation about how things will change. When you use adjectives » Read More
Category: Supervision
Tough Conversations Don’t Have to Be Tough
Last week, Art Petty interviewed me as part of his First-Time Managers Academy. I took questions from the participants. One asked for advice about a tough conversation he needed to have with one of his team members. I responded as I always do to those questions with some techniques that have worked for me and the people » Read More
Boss’s Tip of the Week: Enrich
One difference between good bosses and great bosses is that great bosses seek opportunities to enrich their team members’ work experience. Here are some of the ways. Work with them regularly to help find the places where opportunities and interest meet. Give them, or help them secure, learning and development » Read More
Boss’s Tip of the Week: Don’t wait to document
Human memory is a fickle and changeable thing. That includes your memory. The closer you document an incident to the time it happened, the more likely you are to get it right. Right away is best. Write it down now. If you can’t write it down now, make some notes to help your memory later. Soon is good. Before you end » Read More
The Fix is Never In
I remember the first time someone cried in my office. I didn’t handle it well. My job that day was to fire Dorothy. It had been a long time coming. I inherited Dorothy, and she’d had “issues” for a long time. Her work was never up to standard. There were behavioral issues, too, and they affected the » Read More