368 Stop Repeating Yourself: A 3 Step Leadership Communication System to to Address Ongoing Performance Problems

Speaker A: In this episode, you're going to get the exact words to use for those tricky accountability conversations when one conversation isn't enough. Welcome to Leadership without losing your Soul, a podcast helping human centered leaders master communication to accelerate your team's performance, reduce stress, and build a career with the respect and influence you deserve. I'm your host, David Dye, president of let's Grow Leaders. Um, welcome to the show. In this episode, you'll get three steps you can use to escalate those accountability conversations. When one conversation doesn't get it done, you talk to the person they say they'll change and it doesn't happen. What do you do now? Using the tools you're going to get in this episode will help you avoid endlessly repeating yourself and feeling like nothing ever changes. It'll help your team grow and do work they can be proud of. You'll know who is not a good fit for your team and you'll have the documentation to help them move on. You'll also build a reputation as a leader who cares about your team, about your people, and results. Now, this is part of a two part series, so if you didn't check out the last episode, I encourage you to do that in that episode. I share four steps, the four C's. Clarity, connection, curiosity, and commitment. As you have an Inspire method conversation, so I'm going to assume that you've listened to that episode. If you haven't, go ahead and do that now. Because in this episode, we're going to walk through what to do when you've had one of those conversations and it wasn't enough. You've set clear performance expectations, you've had the check for understanding, you've addressed the issue when it arose, and most of the time that's all it takes. And you'll see significant improvement in employee performance. But let's talk, let's get real. We live in the real world here. Sometimes one conversation just doesn't do it. So I want to lay the foundation here. Before you get too frustrated or upset with somebody for whom that one conversation wasn't enough, recognize that all of us have areas in our life where somebody has to have a second or a third or maybe even a fourth conversation with us. It's not unusual. It's not just that one employee you have, it's every single human being. And that's why we have communication tools like this to help us have these conversations. We all need to. It's normal. We just need the tools to do it. So how do you escalate the conversation? When that first conversation isn't enough, this is where we're going to use the ART method of advanced or escalated accountability. ART is an acronym. Art. Those letters stand for action, repetition, and trust. So here's how it works. Art, uh, will help you escalate the conversation in a way that continues to build the relationship while you're striving for results. Each of the methods keeps using the Inspire model that you used in the last episode. So we're gonna build on that foundation of clarity. You begin the conversation with connection, you move to curiosity, and you close with commitment. You're always doing that same set of steps. Start with clarity, begin the conversation with connection. Move to curiosity. Close with commitment. Do the exact same things through each phase of the ART method of escalation. So we'll start with the letter A. In art, this is the first tier of conversations that you have. A stands for action, and this is where you address the specific action or event that happened. It's, uh, the first or second time you're talking about it. If you listen to the previous episode. This is your basic inspire conversation. It's the first conversation you have. Maybe the second one you initiate. You notice, provide supporting evidence, probe to get their perspective. I invite their potential solutions. R review, where you check for understanding and then E enforce with a schedule to finish. That's the inspire method. Most feedback conversations, you start by discussing a, uh, specific event, a specific activity, specific action. So when we're talking about art, A, R, T, each of these letters stands for what it is we're addressing in that level of escalation. So level one, the beginning level, the specific action. For example, the person just showed up to the meeting late. It's not normally something that they do, but it happened today, so we talk about it. Maybe they didn't document their account. Maybe their data was incorrect. Maybe they interrupted a colleague and negated their idea in a rude way. The first time you talk about it, that's an A action conversation. It's the thing you noticed. Your first one or two inspire conversations, focus on that specific action. Okay, so that's the first one or two conversations. But let's say that you've had those first two, and it happens again. Now what do you do? This is where we're going to move to the next level of art. Art A was for action. Our next level of escalation is R, which stands for repetition. So now instead of focusing on the single action, we're going to focus on the repeated action action, the repeated pattern of behavior. Here you're still going to have an inspire conversation. You're still going to start with connection. My intent for this conversation is and so forth. But this time, when you notice in the connection phase, the facts that you're noticing are, uh, not just that they were late this morning, you're going to notice the repetition, the repeated behavior. So, for example, if someone's got a repeated pattern arriving late, I would notice a repeated pattern where you're arriving late. Then I would, for my S support step, I would provide specific examples. You need three points to make a pattern. So I'd say, hey, it was 10:15 this morning, 9:30 last Monday, 9:45 the Friday before that. Sometimes people aren't aware that they have a pattern of behavior. So when you address the repetition and provide specific examples, you're escalating the conversation, you're putting in a more serious footing. And often you're helping someone identify an issue. Maybe they've minimized or we're trying to ignore. They're just trying to live their life. Maybe they're unaware of it and unaware of the impact or effect that it's having for them. The other thing I'll mention here about the repetition conversation is you only have this repetition conversation when you see the repeated pattern in a short amount of time. If they were late twice last year and it's been six months and it just happened again, you're not going to say, hey, I'm noticing a pattern here. It's not that, but if they were late last week, again this week, and maybe twice this week or something like that, then that definitely warrants a repetition conversation. So let's put this together and see how that conversation would flow. You start with connection. My intent for this conversation is to follow up on our conversations about timeliness so the team can count on you and you have the success that you said you want. I'm noticing a repeated pattern of you running late to our team and client meetings. Specifically this morning. You arrived at 9:15. Last Friday's client meeting started without you and the team meeting last Tuesday, you came in at 9:20. Then you get curious, just like you did in your action level inspire conversation. So when we're talking about this pattern, what are you seeing here? What's happening for you? And then you. I, uh, invite them to solve it. So given this pattern, how do you think you can address this and begin arriving on time once you have a potential solution on the table? When you get to that closing commitment piece, we're going to escalate this as well. The way we'll do that is to use the word commitment or promise very specifically. So, for example, in this conversation about timeliness, let's say their solution is to set an alarm and leave earlier and arrive five minutes early. Once I check for understanding, say, hey, so I'm understanding. What I'm hearing you say is that your solution is to set, uh, an alarm that is going to allow you to leave earlier with the goal of arriving five minutes early. Do I have that right? Okay, great. Is that a commitment you can make, or can you promise going forward that you're going to arrive on time? Or let's say somebody's been having trouble with documenting their work. I might say, you know, checking for understanding. I'm hearing that you're going to document the CRM, and the way you'll do that is by setting an appointment for yourself on Friday afternoons. Do I have that right? Great. Is that a promise you can make? Using the word commitment or asking for a promise communicates the more serious nature of what's going on. You've escalated it. This is a repeated pattern, and you're asking for a commitment or promise. And that lays the groundwork for the next conversation if the behavior continues. But right now, it communicates this is more serious, and it gives the person pause. If they care about what they're doing, they'll process and think about it. Can I really promise to do this, or is there something else in the way? Is it not something I sufficiently care about, or is there a systemic or structural issue that's keeping them from performance? If there is, it's a good way to get it out before they make that commitment. So at the R step, the way we've escalated is one, we've, uh, noticed there is a repeated pattern of behavior. And the other way we escalate is in that review step. We're asking for a commitment or a promise.

Speaker B: Quick break from the show here. If you've had the same performance conversation with someone three times or. Or you've avoided it three times and nothing's changed, I get it. That's exactly why we built the Human Centered Performance Management Accelerator. Normally, this program's only available to organizations who bring me in, but this October, for the first time, I'm opening it up to you directly, not just corporate teams. Two live workshops with me. 30 days of implementation with coaching and support, all of it online. If you're ready to lead performance with more clarity and confidence, I'd love to work with you. Registration closes October 1st. You can find details and register at uh, letsgrowleaders.com performance.

Speaker A: So in our series of conversations, when we're talking about an accountability conversation, we begin with one or two a action conversations. First time we address it first. Second time we address it, it doesn't change. Then we escalate. We move up to an R A repetition conversation where we address a repeated pattern of behavior. We ask for commitment or a promise, but let's say we do that and they make the promise, but it happens again. Now what do you do? Now we're going to move to the final level of the escalation. In art, T stands for trust. When you've had a recent repetition conversation and that negative behavior happens again, this is how you escalate the conversation one more time. You're still going to have an inspire conversation. You're still going to use those three Cs, connect, get curious, and with commitment. But this time your focus changes from the activity and not even the repetition. Now you're focused on trust. So let's say that the person was late. You're not going to focus on them being late. If it was documenting the account, you're not going to focus on documenting the account or how they're treating their colleagues, whatever that content was. This time, you're going to focus in that connection phase on the fact that the person didn't keep their commitment. And here's what it'll sound like. Hey, do you remember the conversation we had last week about documenting the CRM? Yeah. Do you remember the promise that you made last Friday? So here's the thing. I noticed that this week you did not keep your promise, you didn't keep your word. And I'm concerned. Listen, I want to be able to trust you. And I know you want to be able to trust me as your leader, as your manager. I want that for you to be able, that you can take my word and bank on it. And I want to have that same relationship with you. I want to be able to trust you that same way. And right now that's not happening. I want to see you succeed. I want the best for you here. It's important that you achieve all your goals. And this is going to prevent that. And ultimately it can affect your job. So what's happening here is I move to curiosity. What's happening here? How do you think you can fix this? The emotion that I'm striving for in this conversation is one of concerns disappointment. But I'm also being very direct. There's no soft pedaling it. I'm being very Direct having the conversation, but I'm doing it from a place of compassion, concern, and caring for them. There's no point my being upset or angry with them. I might be angry, sure. Nothing wrong with being angry. But if I approach the other person with that frustration or anger, it's a lot more likely they're going to put their focus on me. Even if they know they're wrong. Gosh, why is David being such a jerk? As soon as they've done that, it lessens the chance for them to reflect on themselves. So if I can approach the conversation with concern for them, disappointment that whatever it is isn't happening, and my commitment to their success, while also calling attention to the fact that they broke their word, that greatly increases the chances of success, of them reflecting for themselves, reflecting on themselves about what's going on, and we can get to the bottom of it if there's something we need to solve together or fix together, or if it's just something they need to resolve themselves. Now, when you have this trust conversation, there are three possible outcomes, three things that can happen. The first one is that the person turns the corner. All of us need a trust conversation. This is not a bad conversation. At some point, parts part of the human and you turn the corner. Someone's had this with you. You changed your behavior, you moved forward. You didn't want to be a hypocrite. You're like, oh, my gosh, I never thought about it, that I didn't keep my word here. You will never have to talk to me about this again. And boom, make the change. The second option is that people remove themselves from the role. And I've had this happen. They'll say something like, you know what, David, appreciate you having this conversation with me. I have been thinking about it. This is not a good role for me. I'm never going to be able to meet this level of performance. I don't have that level of detail orientation. I don't have that patience with people. I don't have whatever it is that might not feel great, but it's still a win. It's still a positive outcome. There's no point keeping somebody suffering in a role that's not a good match for them. It drops their productivity. They're miserable. It's punishing and making your team suffer. They're not producing the way you need them to. It's better if that person has that realization and that shift. Yes, you're going to have to get somebody else, and yes, you're going to have to train them but everybody wins in that process, including the person who's now moving to something. Maybe they've had a self realization or they're moving to something that's better suited for them. And then the third potential outcome is that the person says they'll make the change, but they don't. At this point, you've now gone through a whole series of conversations. You know this is most likely not the right role for them and it makes it much easier to make those transitions to help them find something else, either in the organization or outside of it. Now, as you have those conversations, especially the repetition and trust conversations, you need to talk with your human resource department, whoever that is. However large an organization you're in, you'll know if it's a business partner, if it's main HR or somebody that's dual rolling, maybe it's even you. The key thing for all of these conversations is document every one of them. Take notes, Take notes on what the person committed to, the date of the conversation, what you said, what they said, document all that. And one of the easiest ways to do it, just uh, do a summary email for the person, send it to them now it's in your sent file and it's in their inbox. That's going to serve you down the road. As you're connecting with your human resource department. They'll tell you along the way, especially as you're getting into those repetition and trust conversations, is there other paperwork? Is there progressive discipline policy, counseling form, whatever it might be, a pip, performance improvement plan, anything like that that they're going to want to have, they'll let you know you'll work through all that and that'll be a part of the conversation that you'll have. And the documentation that you need is in place. As opposed to what so many leaders do is they get frustrated with somebody's performance. They never really talk to them about it. They don't clarify expectations. And they go to HR and say, I got to get rid of this person. And HR says, well, we can't do that. We've got to get a foundation of good, clear, shared expectations. What does success look like? And then you're frustrated because HR is not supporting you. Well, they are, but they're supporting the proper process for you and for the person. So when one conversation isn't enough, first thing you need to do, escalate from your initial conversation up to an R, A repetition. Focus on the repeated pattern of behavior. Ask for a promise or commitment at the end of that conversation. If it still doesn't happen. Your final level of conversation is a t trust conversation where you focus on the fact that that they broke their word. When you do this consistently, you will not endlessly be repeating yourself. Things will change. The person's going to address the behavior or you'll have the documentation you need to help them move. You'll help your team grow. They'll know that you value good work. They're going to feel valued for the work they're doing. They'll have pride in their performance and know that they're all pulling with people who are doing the same thing and the folks who aren't a good fit for your team. You'll know it. You'll have the evidence you need and you'll be able to help them move on. And you'll build that reputation as a leader who cares about your people while also caring about results. And if you want to equip the leaders in your organization with practical human centered performance tools like these, give me a shout. You can reach me at David Dy dye@letsgrowleaders.com and let's talk. We've got an entire program to help your organization build that foundation of clarity and then be able to move through all the feedback conversations that people need to have, the ones that are encouraging and motivating and the ones that address when performance isn't where it needs to be. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any of these practical communication skills to help you accelerate your team's performance, reduce stress, and build a career with the respect and influence you deserve. Until next time, I'm your host, David Dye, reminding you have the conversations you need to have as soon as you need to have them and be the leader you'd want your boss to be.