Making difficult confrontations less painful and more productive.
In the current environment, skilled employees have the option to change jobs almost as often as they do socks. The difference between retaining your talent and watching it march out the door could be as simple as learning to handle conflict well.
Making the approach
Confrontations are an opportunity for constructive dialogue, where employees can get valuable information about improving their performance - and so can you, says Vicki Bacal, owner of Resume Specialist and a career consultant in St. Louis Park, Minn.
"We live in a very critical society," says Bacal. "We tend to hang onto critical mean things in our ego and feel bad about them, and let go of all the wonderful things."
Barrie Zucal, a career counselor near Washington, advises managers to manage for people, not results. The results will come if your team feels valued, she says. "If you can help them do their best," Zucal says, "there's probably much more that's possible from your own limited managerial view. ... When people feel valued, they're willing to work hard."
Zucal's most important advice is to listen at least as much as you talk, and to make your expectations clear from the outset. "There is a fine line between having high standards and demanding excellence, and making it so hard that nobody can do it," she says. The way to achieve this excellence is to make the path understood at the beginning of a project. One way is to have the employee reiterate the goals of a project to make sure they share your vision.
Where to do it
Bacal recommends assessing the situation and carefully determining whether the discussion should take place in a formal, closed setting, or an informal atmosphere. Ideally, get out from behind the desk.
"Go to a restaurant or coffeehouse," Bacal advises. "It equalises the power, making yourself more of a colleague and less of a boss. Try to have an informal dialogue stressing things that are positive, then moving to issues and concerns," she says, adding," Share responsibility for working on improving [their] performance. Reinforce the things that you appreciate."
But when the infraction is serious, a formal setting is more appropriate since it connotes action and is an opportunity for the boss to establish his or her authority.
The worst thing you can do as a manager, says Zucal, is to blame employees for a lack of success. "It's a manager's job to teach people how to succeed," she adds. "If they're not, then the manager needs to look at their own way of doing things. Blaming anytime in any relationship is one of the most harmful things you can do." It erodes self-esteem, creates tremendous resentment, and promotes reactivity rather than productive thinking. "It's so useless," she says. "It becomes about the person rather than what needs to happen to achieve goals."
