"All of a Sudden..." Performance Problems resolved with
Performance Coaching
How many times have you heard someone say the words, "It
happened all of a sudden?" In my career as a manager, executive,
consultant, psychologist and even a two-year stint as a human
resource manager I can't begin to count the number of times
people have complained that something happened "all of a
sudden." Do things really happen suddenly, or do they usually
begin slowly over time, gathering momentum. For example,
consider performance problems with employees--do they begin "all
of a sudden" or do they usually start gradually as small
disturbances and gain seriousness and complexity over time? If
you've been a manager for even a few months I'm sure you'll
agree that few problems actually happen "all of a sudden." Most
escalate over time gaining not only complexity, but also
seriousness.
So why then do so many managers claim that performance problems
happen "all of sudden?" In my experience it happens because of
three reasons. The first is that some managers are literally
unaware of their employees' problems. Perhaps they have
distanced themselves too much from their employees to be aware
of what is going on, or they have turned a "blind-eye" to what
is really going on in the work place. In any event, a manager
must be close enough to his or her employees to know what is
going on. Without that closeness, there is little chance of
preventing small problems from festering into large ones.
The second reason is managers who believe that problems can fix
themselves if they left alone. This is called problem
self-resolution. Now think about it, how many times in the
day-to-day managing of people can you turn your back on a
problem and expect it to go a way? Granted, in some rare
situations some problems may fix themselves, but in most
situations what happens to the problem? Doesn't it begin to
grow? Doesn't it get more complex? Doesn't it begin to involve
more people and more processes? The truth is that problem
self-resolution is a cancer that can be the downfall of a
manager. It's necessary and important to delegate the
appropriate tools and responsibilities to your employees. You
cannot sit back and merely hope that the problem will somehow
magically fix itself. That rarely ever happens in business
today.
The third reason is managers whose temperament is
non-confrontational, thus they are fearful of having conflict
with employees. So as a result they tend to avoid situations
where they need to discuss performance problems with employees.
These situations avoided over time can cause minor problems to
grow into major problems. Confronting a small issue with an
employee is much easier and far more effective than
procrastinating then having to confront that same employee with
a large issue at a later time. Part of being a manager is having
the courage to confront issues when it's timely, necessary and
appropriate.
So what does this mean? And how does this relate to you? It's
far easier to deal with and resolve small problems than it is
big problems. Small problems typically involve a few people and
one or two processes. Large problems involve many people and a
lot of processes. Many times a small problem can be resolved in
a few minutes through performance
coaching, but a big problem can be so complex that it can
literally take weeks, months and even years to resolve. Then,
consider of the cost of resolution. Waiting, for whatever
reason, can be very expensive.
>From my experience with retails stores, I've observed how
front-end bag expense can begin as a small problem as baggers
and checkers fail to pay close attention to the number of bags
used for each order. If items per bag decrease over a four-month
period from an average of 6.5 items per bag to 5.5 items per
bag, the front-end manager has a small problem. But if he or she
ignores the problem for any of the three reasons described above
the problem could grow to a larger problem in succeeding months.
If the problem did grow to an average of 4.5 items per bag, then
the front-end manager would have a substantially larger problem
to solve, which would take a longer time to fix.
If the front-end manager was monitoring items per bag on a
regular basis and were aware of the decline from 6.5 to 6.0,
then he or she could begin an intervention to identify the
causes of the performance problem and solve it early, rather
than waiting until the problem was much larger. Waiting several
months while even more people form bad habits would make the
solution much more difficult as compared to jumping in early and
resolving the problem while it was in its infancy. Stated in
another way: early can be simple, quick and cheap; later is
often complex, difficult and expensive. It's been my
experience that, "There ain't no such thing as all of a sudden."
Very few performance problems begin as large problems. Most
begin as manageable issues solved by simple performance
coaching. I liked the statement so much that I've quoted it
many times in the years since that class. The statement is
right: "There ain't no such thing as all of a sudden." In
management, problems tend to begin as small manageable issues.
Then, if left alone, and unsolved they grow into major problems
that drive managers nuts. As managers it's our responsibility to
identify those problems while they are small and in their
infancy and then deal with them quickly and decisively. That's
what makes good managers great.