Recently I was talking with Fred, a new manager, who said he couldn't win for losing. When he delegated and checked up, his employees would get annoyed, stubborn, and resistant, claiming he was micro-managing. If I don't check, he said, they don't do it. In either case, I'm not getting what I need, and what our clients need. Clients are complaining and my manager thinks I'm not producing.

When we looked at a specific example, the problem started to get real clear.

Upper management had asked for an upgrade for an existing service. They wanted additional features, requiring new technology. The technology was common in the industry, and should have been easily implemented. Implementation was slated for the end of the quarter, an easy 3 month project.

In the past, Fred would have delegated it to the appropriate junior employee, then checked in regularly, like a couple of times a week, to see if it was done. His employees were understandably annoyed. They hadn't had time to source a vendor, let alone implement any changes before he was asking if they had finished.

So, this time, Fred delegated the task to Grant, told him when to be done, and then didn't mention it, except in the weekly staff meetings. Each week, Grant would have a good story why things weren't moving along. It had now been four months for a task that should have taken two at the very most.

Fred was past annoyed, especially when his boss asked him in public, one more time, when was it going to be done. This latest embarrassment was enough to trigger an angry blow up, targeted at Grant who had let him down. He finished off the dressing down by calling the vendor himself, only to learn this vendor didn't supply the model necessary for the upgrade.

Four months had gone by; the project was still at step one.

Where did Fred get off track?

Rule #1.

Fred was delegating and checking, but not acting on lack of performance. A sure recipe for continued lack of performance, frustration, and angry blow up.

It all goes back to Rule #1: behavior that's rewarded is apt to be repeated. And, the Corollary for Rule #1: the best reward for bad behavior is to do nothing. By asking about progress, and then not taking action when there wasn't progress, Fred taught Grant that his poor performance, not meeting deadlines, had no consequences.

Time for consequences. Timing consequences.

See the article Managing Poor Performance with Consequences for a further discussion of this topic.

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See the articles that discuss this further:

Managing Poor Performance, Coaching Conversations, and Counseling Conversations.

Patricia Wiklund Ph.D. works with managers who are challenged with a difficult employee or colleague, and organizations that need to get back on track to effectiveness and productivity. Start increasing your management and leadership skills with her new audio coaching program on Emotional Intelligence: The Leadership Edge. Just click here: http://www.PatWiklund.com/eiaudiocoaching.shtml Contact Pat at Pat@patwiklund.com