Sticky Situations with Subordinates

George Gallup said, "Employees don't leave jobs, they leave managers." He discovered this fact after surveying many workers in all kinds of industries.  When he looked for what makes a job satisfying, he discovered the primary factor was the boss.  If you have a bad, frustrating boss, you might leave your job even if it is a good job.  With the costs for hiring and training new people soaring each year, organizations are looking for ways to retain employees.  They pay people like Gallup to tell them what factors keep people happy enough to stay in their jobs.  If you've ever had a job where you said, "I really love my job, but my boss is driving me crazy," then you understand how important it is for bosses to learn how to deal with sticky situations involving subordinates. 

Daniel Goleman came up with a catchy concept called Emotional Intelligence or EI.  In his book, Primal Leadership, he discovered that managers with a high retention rate also have a high EI—a high score on compassion, listening, and caring about others.  In fact if you think back on the managers you've worked for in your life, what characteristics did they have?  Here are a few I recall: good listener, positive attitude about my work, would challenge me but not beyond my limits, supportive, and enthusiastic.  Goleman found that managers who understood feelings and emotions became more successful leaders.  A high EI score means you are a manager who strives to learn more about yourself and your behaviors in order to improve your skills as a person, not just as a leader.  In essence, you learn to care about yourself and about others at the same time.

How to Discipline Using the SIJR Model

Given what Gallup learned about leaders and what Daniel Goleman tells us about Emotional Intelligence, how can those of us who want to be good managers effectively discipline employees? 

Discipline carries a negative connotation fraught with memories of trips to the principal's office or of scolding words from our parents.  An empathetic manager with a high EI score might find disciplining tough.  In answer to the question—how can we manage with compassion and still discipline—we must understand exactly what discipline means.  The word discipline comes from the Latin word diciplina, meaning disciple.  Wikipedia tells us that discipline has as its root discere "to learn," and derives from discipulus, or pupil.  A disciple, therefore, is a follower or a student.  Similarly, to discipline someone means to teach that person. 

The early 90's brought a plethora of literature about discipline without punishment in an effort to show that discipline and punishment do not necessarily go together. In fact while disciplining, a good manager learns to communicate expected behaviors in an open, clear, and direct manner.  To discipline, you must employ the principles of the SIJR Conversation, namely you want to create a two-way dialogue about what you expect and what is possible from both the manager's and the employee's perspective.  Coming from an orientation of the Three C's—curiosity, compassion and change—managers with high EI scores excel as disciplinarians.

Factors Inherent in any Disciplinary Conversation

State behaviors that must change.  When we specify behaviors in the SIJR Conversation, we identify the behaviors in a way that clearly communicates what we are talking about.  Example: "Mark, you have missed the deadline for two major projects.  When you didn't get the work to Janice in time, we had to shelve the project.  It has caused us to lose two rather important jobs.  We must get your end of the project completed two weeks before deadline."  This example provides Mark with information about what behavior his boss expects as well as what problems his behavior caused.

Keep the Other Person in Mind.  In a disciplinary conversation, we open our minds to understanding more than our side of the story.  Your organization may have rules that may no longer prove productive.  When you allow employees to share their frustrations, you open up the possibility to the existence of administrative barriers that block productivity.  Example.  Mark responds, "I missed both deadlines because I got the project data too late.  Nathan couldn't get the data to me because his computer crashed."

Select the Right Time and Place.  We all remember our dread when our teachers sent us to the principal's office.  As children, we recognized the principal's office as a place of power where we did not belong.  Before delivering the bad news, think about the place and the time.  Find a place that feels safe to the other person.  If you work in the world of cubicles, go to one of the conference rooms. 

Be careful not to share bad news when the person is experiencing a personal crisis or about to give an important presentation.  Select a time that will enable you to have an open dialogue.  If the time you select adds pressure, the dialogue will shut down.

Stress Positive Consequences.  Often when dealing with performance issues, we think only in the negative.  Our challenge is to come up with positive consequences.  The behavioral psychologists tell us that mice respond to shocks, but they also tell us mice respond to bits of food as well.  Positive consequences create a willingness to change.  Negative consequences produce a short-term willingness to change only when the axe is hanging over our heads.  Example:  "Mark, if you get us two new projects, we might make our projections this year.  That recognition might be the boost you've been looking for to get your promotion."