Understanding how to have a productive confrontation begins with a quick self-assessment. The former requires living in fantasy land and will get you nowhere. The latter will only make matters worse.

1. Toll Free: 877.880.4477
Phone: 281.880.6525
www.hrp.net
Need a Better Way to Confront
Problem Employees?

2. Understanding how to have a productive confrontation begins with a
quick self-assessment. Do you:
www.hrp.net
»
• Shy away from the problem and hope it will solve itself, or, the other
extreme,
• Take employees to the proverbial "wood shed" and vent your
frustration or anger, without thinking it through carefully in advance?
The former requires living in fantasy land and will get you nowhere. The
latter will only make matters worse.

3. Motivating yourself to become skilled at productive confrontation begins
by thinking through the nature and impact of the problem(s) you seek to
address. Sometimes they run deeper than you might think.
For example, if an employee fails to give you a report you need in time to
prepare you for meeting with a big customer or prospect, what is the
impact? If it's that you hold the meeting without the facts and analysis
you need to make a successful presentation, and lose the customer or
prospect. That's a high price. But it's not all that's at stake.
www.hrp.net
»

4. Risk: Downward Spiral
What else is at stake? For example, what if the blown deadline
undermines your confidence in an employee who till now, has done a
good job? This could sour your relationship and fuel a downward spiral
which ends in a termination or resignation. What if, as a result, other
workers get the message that it's no big deal to miss deadlines? Based on
what happened to their coworker, they may decide there are no real
consequences to missing a deadline and start to take their own deadlines
less seriously. You get the picture. Never believe for a moment the rest of
your staff is not watching to see what happens.
"Crucial confrontations comprise the very foundation of accountability"
(as described in a book by the same title published by McGraw Hill) and
start with the question, "why didn't you do what you're supposed to do."
These confrontations must be handled face-to-face, but do not require
acrimony, just an honest, frank, respectful, and focused conversation.
www.hrp.net
»

5. Administer "CPR"
This type of confrontation requires first that you probe the nature of the
problem you think you need to confront. This necessitates digging deeper
than the incident itself. The authors of "Crucial
Confrontations"1
recommend a three-pronged approach to "unbundling"
the problem, which they call the CPR method -- content, pattern and
relationship. Here's how it works:
www.hrp.net
»
• Content: What was the actual incident? In the example above, it was
missing a deadline to turn in a report. Assess the seriousness of the
incident.
• Pattern: Has this problem occurred before? If so, what did you do
previously to address it? Presumably whatever you did wasn't
effective, so what new approaches can you take?
• Relationship: How has the incident (or pattern of similar incidents)
affected your working relationship with the employee -- or how might
it if effective remedial steps are not taken?

6. After you have sorted this out and decided which
CPR component is the most important, you need to
decide whether a "crucial confrontation" is
warranted. It might not be. For example, suppose
in this incident, the blown deadline caused you
problems. However, it was the first instance and
you sense the employee is somewhat thin-skinned
and you value the relationship.
www.hrp.net
»
If you take a good hard look and decide a confrontation is necessary,
don't think about having it until you have the right frame of mind. "Speak
when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever
regret," Ambrose Bierce once wrote. After you have cooled off, you can
plan your confrontation. Following are some basic steps described in
detail in the book:
"Speak when you
are angry and you
will make the best
speech you will
ever regret."
-- Ambrose Bierce
"Speak when you
are angry and you
will make the best
speech you will
ever regret."
-- Ambrose Bierce
You might decide to let it pass. But if you simply are uncomfortable with
confrontation, don't rationalize your way out of holding an employee
accountable when appropriate.

7. Elements of a Successful Confrontation
Describe the gap: Employees will be more at ease if they sense you do
respect them and care about their goals. With this perception, they are
much more open to what you have to say. Rather than simply telling
them what they did wrong, lay out what you had expected, what
occurred instead, and the gap between the two. This somewhat detached
approach de-personalizes the problem and helps keep the employee from
falling into a defensive crouch.
www.hrp.net
»

8. Make the remedy easier: Like it or not, the authors contend, it's up to
you to remove as many barriers as possible for the employee to do the
job correctly. Managers need to see themselves as "facilitators, enablers,
and supporters, not armed guards or cheerleaders."
www.hrp.net
»
Find a mutually agreeable plan, and monitor progress: Absolute clarity is
essential regarding what happens next, in terms of who does what, and
by when, to execute remedial action. Avoid ambiguous terms like "the
team." Instead, specific individuals must be given full responsibility for
particular facets of a plan, even if it requires support from others. A plan
must also be clear for how progress towards achievement of the plan will
be accomplished.
»
Motivate corrective action: Employees need to want to perform better, if
they are to avoid repeating the error being discussed at the
confrontation. But motivating an employee does not require "clout,
chutzpah or even charisma," the authors contend. Rather, it involves
helping the person to gain a more accurate understanding of the impact
of messing up again -- but not in an intimidating way.
»

9. 14550 Torrey Chase Blvd., Ste. 360 Houston, TX 77014 USA
www.hrp.net
E-mail : info@hrp.net
Toll Free
Phone
Fax
:
:
:
877.880.4477
281.880.6525
281.866.9426

10. 14550 Torrey Chase Blvd., Ste. 360 Houston, TX 77014 USA
www.hrp.net
E-mail : info@hrp.net
Toll Free
Phone
Fax
:
:
:
877.880.4477
281.880.6525
281.866.9426