The Performance Elephant<\/h2>\n

When it comes to performance, the employee and manager are almost always both aware when performance is on a downward slide. It is the proverbial \u201celephant in the room.\u201d<\/em> If there is no open communication, this can snowball into an unpleasant situation. This does not have to be the case. The ugly outcome can be averted if managers and employees are in constant, genuine dialog about performance and development.<\/p>\n

Consider the ‘thought bubbles’ below. Does this example sound familiar?<\/p>\n

The Manager Thinks\u2026<\/h3>\n

I made a mistake.<\/strong> When I placed Randy in this job, I knew it would stretch him. I expected him to need support and was more than happy to provide it. I really thought he would be successful. But now it’s clear to me that I underestimated the size of the learning curve. He isn’t a good fit at this time. His performance is rapidly declining and he is starting to lose the confidence of others. Randy is a talented guy, but it looks like he isn’t going to make it. I’ve been very positive and encouraging with him. I suppose we are in the awful position where he is going to fail and I’ll need to exit him from the organization. I’m sure the poor guy will be totally blind sighted.<\/p>\n

Randy Thinks….<\/h3>\n

I’m tired.<\/strong> Tired of working so hard without making progress. Tired of worrying about every decision I make. Tired because I lay awake at night trying to understand why I’m losing ground at work. Tired of my mind being pre-occupied by how this horror story will end. I have to find the courage to talk with my wife. Should I talk to my manager? That sounds risky. I don’t want her to think I can’t do the job. I have to update my resume. I have to find another job before I get fired. I’m tired and I don’t see relief coming anytime soon.<\/p>\n

The Elephant in the Room<\/h3>\n

Randy’s performance is the elephant in the room – the issue everyone knows about but doesn’t want to talk about.<\/strong> In many cases, performance will continue to decline and the elephant will remain in the room until there is only one option – an ugly separation. The likelihood of a win-win outcome for the organization and the employee diminishes over time. These options shift to win-lose and eventually lose-lose.<\/p>\n

If there had been open communication between Randy and the manager, the slide to an ugly separation can be avoided. Being in constant dialogue allows for other options to be chosen. Maybe the role should be narrowed. Maybe there is a different role. Maybe there is additional support that can be provided. The viability of these options diminishes the longer the elephant remains in the room.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

Remove the elephant. Have the discussion. You will both be relieved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Image courtesy of\u00a0justingun \/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to performance, the employee and manager are almost always both aware when performance is on a downward slide. It is the proverbial \u201celephant in the room.\u201d If there is no open communication, this can snowball into an unpleasant situation. This does not have to be the case. The ugly outcome can be averted if managers and employees are in constant, genuine dialog about performance and development.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we can become obsessed with the things we can measure and forget that a significant part of leadership is to make decisions when the data points are ambiguous. Consider this example to drive home this point…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7],"tags":[10,5,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}