In A World Full of Right Answers, Ask the Right Questions
Recently I found myself in the middle of a performance management discussion while enjoying pizza night at my neighbor’s house. My neighbor—let’s call her Katie for the sake of this story—was casually detailing her frustrations while our kids played together, sharing that a fellow employee she works with can’t seem to break away from his phone. I asked Katie if she’d said something, and she replied that she had the other day, but rather than put down his phone, the employee hid behind some boxes, phone in hand, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
I immediately recommended a performance improvement plan. And then she shared more. She shared that he had been there for five years (four more than her) and that he continuously complained of personal issues with mental illness and was frequently calling out. She shared how aggravated the entire situation was making her. And while in that moment I realized my role was to take off my HR consultant hat and shut up, listen, and empathize as her friend, I couldn’t help but wonder where the employee relationship had gone wrong. How long had this behavior been allowed? Was it, as Katie saw it, bad behavior according to the expectations of his role? How was the organization handling the employee’s complaints of mental illness? Had anyone clearly communicated his need for improvement and set reasonable expectations for growth?
Too often as leaders, we fail to get curious. We jump to conclusions (as I so quickly did with Katie), and forget to sit back, ask questions, and simply listen. It’s easy to do. After all, we live in a world full of biases and assumptions. And we don’t get rewarded as often for asking the right question as we do for having the right answer.
I’ve witnessed Katie’s situation more times than I can count and watched as middle management struggled to find the right way to resolve it. I’ve seen employees frustrated by their leadership’s lack of action, by their failure to be transparent, by their inability to communicate. As a leader, I’ve made this mistake too. What is the one thing I’ve found, in business and in life, that simultaneously supports everyone involved in resolving a difficult situation? Curiosity. It’s not knowing the answer or providing a solution. It’s asking the right questions.
While I don’t pretend to have all the right answers (or know all the right questions), next time you find yourself preparing to manage an employee’s performance, I hope you’ll ask yourself the following:
Does the employee fully understand the expectations of the role, AND have they been trained completely (and shown understanding)?
Is this a consistent repeated performance issue, or is this a one off? If a one off, how can I tackle it now while giving my employee grace to avoid problems later?
How is this behavior impacting the other employees on the team?
How are my own biases getting in the way? Am I too close to this to be objective?
Have I clearly communicated the employee’s performance opportunity, with examples, and set reasonable expectations for improvement?
After all, curiosity may have killed the cat, but it has yet to harm a human in the throes of professional conflict.