Better Sooner Than Late - Relationships Before Correction

How employees react to you in the moment when you're offering correction is usually far more about what's happened in the minutes, hours, days, weeks and even years before the moment the correction gets made.

So talking about techniques for offering effective criticism or constructive criticism is a little behind the eight ball.

Those two days you spent festering, hemming and hawing about the right way to talk to the employee about the problem, because you wanted to get it just right? Yeah, that's when the employee thought you were snubbing them. Showing them how mad you were. Or, at the very least, they at least knew you were displeased with them, so they've been stewing themselves.

That reaction that seemingly came out of nowhere, that you felt was completely unjustified, and proved how irrational they were being about their response, since it didn't match up with the calm, measured, and dare-you-say caring tones you used while you talked? Chances are, it's more about who they've come to see you as than it is about anything you did.

Actually, to take it a bit more realistically, it's more about who they've come to believe you see them as.

Because let's face it--no matter how petty and vindictive that employee might seem, they're not really out to get you. It can sometimes seem like they're doing things deliberately, just to provoke you, but they're really not as interested in you as all of that.

What they are interested in is themselves. And since you don't seem to be as interested in them as they are, they're always going to feel the need to defend themselves, justify themselves, or explain themselves to you.

The biggest key to leading people is to have them believe, truly believe, that you are leading them to a place that's good for them. And of course, for them to believe that, it has to be true.

You genuinely have to be operating in the best interests of everyone in your organization. Your customers, your managers, your staff, your superiors. To truly lead all of these people, you have to know them, know their interests, and work at bringing them about.

Old school managers don't believe this. They think that leadership is about getting what you want. If you start giving in to demands, or making concessions to people, then they start walking all over you. They start thinking they can make more demands. Before you know it, the inmates are running the asylum.

Employees must be made to understand the needs of the organization, say the old-schoolers. They need to be Team Players, which to the old-schoolers means doing whatever the coach wants.

Loyalty, to these old-schoolers, is something that should spring forth spontaneously from within employees.

Never mind that in actual practice, the organization-focused mindset of these guys is actually more likely to drive loyalty out of good employees than it is to cause any loyalty to spring forth in employees who aren't as naturally inclined to it.

I'm not saying to swing the pendulum too far to the other side either, though--by becoming completely employee focused, you really can get walked all over, and the organization really can suffer. You'll be liked, but won't see progress. It's a matter of balancing employee interests with company interests with customer interests with your own interests . . . .

Yeah. Easier said than done. But knowing there's a balance to achieve can get you further than trying to balance the rest on the backs of employees.

That said, it's still easy to hurt relationships by giving employees what they want.

Yes, you read that right. Giving employees what they want can hurt relationships.

No, I'm not giving the old-schoolers a chance to twirl their mustaches and go back to neglecting their employees. I'm actually trying to prevent the next incarnation of the mustache-twirler: The boss who tries to meet employee needs, but does it in such a way as to remind the employee of exactly how benevolent he is being, of how put out this is going to make him, or as if he is mentally keeping a score of exactly where they stand.

I exaggerate in these examples, but even little bits of this creeping in to our attitude comes across to the employee, then little bits of resentment will start to build up in the employee.

Because when it's about how benevolent I am, or about how put out I am, or about what they now owe me, they're going to see that it's still all me, me, me, and they're never going to be able to relax into accepting that I'm looking out for them. And if they don't believe you're leading them to a place that's good for them . . . well, there goes leadership.

So how do you do it? What's the technique that will make them buy it when you give them what they want?

Well, first you take off your right shoe and put it in a plain brown paper bag. Then you roll up the bag at the top like a kid's lunch sack. Then you stand up on your desk, wave the bag over your head, and cluck like a chicken.

I'm kidding, by the way.

The truth is much less interesting. The truth is, there is no technique that can make an employee "buy" something. If you go in trying to show the employee how much you're caring about them, it's just going to come across as being about how caring you're being.

No, unfortunately, the only way to do it is to really care. The only way to do it is to really fix the relationships you have with your employees. To really and truly want good things for them, not just because it will bring you money, but because they're people and they're working for you every day and because looking out for each other has to start with somebody, and it might as well be you.

So the next time you're tempted to practice "Management By Wandering Around," looking for things to correct and talk about, instead practice "Management By Settling Down." Spend time with people. Build relationships with them. Spend more time listening to them than talking to them. Worry more about discovering what and interesting, diverse group of people you have working for you and you'll find your employees worrying more about coming through for the person who seems so interested in them.