If you manage people, you are sure to need to have a difficult conversation with one of your team at some time in your career.  It may be to manage a conflict, to deliver some news that your team member does not want to hear, or to give some critical feedback.  But most tough conversations that managers have with a team member are to do with poor performance or discipline.

It is unlikely that many managers would look forward to conversations about poor performance or discipline, but most know when they need to be had. 

So, if you are a manager, how confidently do you have the tougher performance or disciplinary conversations that you may need to have from time to time?

• Do you ever find yourself avoiding a difficult conversation?
• How effectively do you set and agree performance expectations when a team member is under performing? 
• Do you “take the monkey on your back” rather than empower your team members to solve their own problems?

There are many reasons why managers fail to have these conversations or at least fail to have effective conversations:

• For fear of causing upset, retribution or a negative reaction.
• Just hoping that things will improve naturally.
• Thinking it is quicker and easier to tell the underperforming employee what to do and expect them to do it. 
• Not wanting our emotions to get in the way of a constructive conversation – fearing we may say something we will regret.
• Allowing our own biases or preconceptions of what and why someone did what they did, think what they think, feel what they feel to influence our judgements. 

While many managers seemed to be naturally skilled at having difficult performance conversations, it is actually a skill that we all can learn.  Sure, we need to have the courage and the social self-confidence to initiate the conversation.  But there are a lot of communication skills that can be learned to enable managers to have effective performance conversations that lead to improved performance and behaviour change.

What skills could be useful to support you through these conversations?  Here are some tips:

1. Plan in advance. 

Ask yourself (and write down your answers if that helps):

• What do I want to achieve from this conversation?  What is the outcome I am looking for?
• What do I want to say?
• How are they likely to react?
• How will I respond if they react in the way I expect?

2.  Choose the appropriate time and venue.

• Do you need to arrange a meeting with the person or do you want to be spontaneous? 
• Decide on an appropriate venue.  Somewhere private and where interruptions can be avoided.

3.  Set the right tone from the beginning of the conversation.

• Your tone needs to reflect your message.  So, if it is a serious message that you are wanting to give, be professional and empathetic, but avoid giving false reassurances by being overly friendly or casual.

4. Having the conversation.

• Give specific feedback and state the impact on others:  “I have read the report you have prepared for submission tomorrow.  I can see that the executive summary and recommendations are still not entered.  Management is expecting the report tomorrow and it cannot be late.”
• Avoid name calling, labelling or making assumptions about the causes of behaviour, e.g., “You are lazy”, “You are not reliable”.
• Listen actively to what they have to say in response.  Reflect what they say to show your understanding.
• Ask lots of questions to probe further and build understanding.
• Avoid becoming defensive.  Avoid statements that start with “But….”.  Listen and reflect.
• Ask what the person will do to remedy the situation or improve their behaviour/performance?
• Keep asking questions until you have good agreement on the solution and next steps.
• Avoid providing solutions.  You will get better buy-in if you allow the other person to generate their own solutions.  Offer yours only if theirs are exhausted.
• Have them generate as many solutions as they can before evaluating them.  Don’t snuff out an option before considering it fully.
• Develop a plan of action:  What will be done next, by whom, and by when.  Define what success will look like.
• Decide on a date for review.

We may never enjoy these kinds of conversations, but we can learn to manage them effectively.  Fortunately, they are not difficult skills to acquire.  As you can see, many are basic communication skills – listening, questioning, probing, clarifying, reflecting, avoiding judgement and labelling, etc.