Ok, let’s get this out of the way … this is not *really* a show about how to fire people. Rather, today we discuss how to take a poor performer and turn them into a good performer. And when, despite your best efforts, you are not successful in helping the person turn around, how to be in a position where you can fire the person. You may not feel good about it (that’s ok, you shouldn’t!), but you will be confident in your decision and be able to put your head down on your pillow and sleep at night.

There are six steps:

1. Feedback
2. Systemic Feedback
3. One on One Performance Discussion
4. Coaching
5. Formal Performane Discussion and Notification
6. Coaching Within Your Corporate Process

We’ll review these steps at a high-level today, and come back to them with more detail and some examples over the next couple of podcasts.

If you’re one of our many listeners who come to the website each week to download the show, try subscribing. Simply go to iTunes, download the iTunes player, and then click on the iTunes subscription button on the left side of this web page. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you’ll have the convenience of having the Manager Tools podcast downloaded AUTOMATICALLY each week. Give it a try!

Last week, we covered at a high-level the Late Stage Coaching model, or the process you go through when having to fire someone. As we noted then, and we’ll say again now, this process isn’t really a “how to fire someone”, but rather, how to develop someone. In most cases, if you follow this model, you NEVER get to the step where you have to fire someone. Now, isn’t that an experience we’d all like to avoid?

This week, we review the model in a bit more detail, with some detailed examples to better illustrate the process. The entire review was a bit long, so we broke it into 2 parts, the first of which we’ll cover today. We’ll follow-on with the second part next week.

Warning: For some of you, this show may sound repetitive. To some degree, it is. If you fully understand the model AND have implemented it, we beg your forgiveness. If you haven’t, however, listen on …

As we discuss at the end of the podcast, we’ve noted that although many of our listeners really would like to engage in more meaningful discussions on management topics, the blog doesn’t lend itself too well to the task. We’ve attempted to improve the situation by implementing discussion forums on our website. You can find the discussion forums here. We’d very much appreciate it if you would direct your questions and comments to the discussion forums rather than leaving them here on the blog or sending them to us via email. There are an awful lot of good conversations happening, particularly on email, that we would like to share with the broader Manager Tools community. If you have a particular challenge or question for us, it’s very likely that others do so as well … sharing your problems/questions on the discussion forum will allow all of us to benefit and learn!

Last week, in our detailed review of the Late Stage Coaching Model, we covered steps 1 and 2 (Feedback and Systemic Feedback) of the six steps. Today we review the last 4 steps.

As a reminder, the 6 steps of the Late Stage Coaching Model are:

1. Feedback - Key point here is one of FREQUENCY versus significance. Good adjusting feedback is relaxed, it’s professional, it’s simple, it’s respectful. But it is also DELIVERED.
2. Systemic Feedback- Systemic feedback is simply feedback about an employee failing to change behavior that they’ve agreed to work on. This is a critical and often overlooked escalation of your performance coaching, and has powerful implications. Effective Managers AVERT the need for performance coaching with this step ALL THE TIME.
3. One on One Performance Discussion - In this step you simply make YOUR agenda item during your weekly one-on-one their continued failure to perform. You talk about their performance, and review all the feedback and systemic feedback, and their lack of improvement. And you ask for their input. You’re doing FOUR things here.
   1. Reconfirming that they are performing below your standards.
   2. Creating a key documentation point.
   3. Asking for comments of ANY nature that might explain the performance issue.
   4. Asking again for ideas about how THEY can improve THEIR performance.
4. Coaching - It’s possible you never get to coaching, because the feedback, systemic feedback, and direct one-on-one discussion get the point across. We hope so, we BELIEVE so… until they don’t get it. And then we coach them.
5. Formal Performance Discussion and Notification - This discussion is similar to the first one. But now, you’re doing FIVE things.
   1. Reconfirming that they are performing below your standards.
   2. Creating a key documentation point.
   3. Asking for comments of ANY nature that might explain the performance issue.
   4. Asking again for ideas about how THEY can improve THEIR performance.
   5. And finally, Notifying them about the implications of continued failure to improve.
6. Coaching Within Your Corporate Process - We can’t tell you what it is; it’s different in every company. You coach them using the MT coaching model, modifying it to allow for your organization’s final steps or system. If you’ve followed the process we’ve described, you’ll be in a great position to comply with whatever processes exist in your company prior to finally letting someone go.

As we’ve said repeatedly, you use this model ALL THE TIME, not just when you have someone you intend to let go. 99 times out of 100, behavior changes and you never get to step 6.

Questions or comments? Chat with us about them in the Discussion Forums.

Thanks to everyone participating on the Discussion Forums … we’re all learning!

One of the lost arts of the corporate world in the past 20 years is how to work with an administrative assistant. While we won’t argue that a great deal of the “leaning out” of corporations has been a good thing, working with admins effectively is one of the painful legacies of the cutbacks.

Of the executives who are assigned admins, our experience is that very few know how to use them well. There are many ways that the fantastic opportunity an admin offers are squandered. But in virtually all cases, the fundamental failure of managers who execute this responsibility is that they fail to delegate enough to the admin.

We start a series of casts on administrative assistants this week. In our first installment, we discuss the basics principles that will guide your thinking.

These casts will either help you do things right when you get to the point where you’re assigned an admin. Or, if you have an admin now, these casts will help you re-invent the relationship, making it what you always thought it should be.

After you’ve listened, you’ll want your admin to hear it.

This week, we continue our series on working effectively with administrative assistants. Given that this is part 2 of 3 parts, we’ve obviously had a lot to discuss on the subject.

This week, we finish (finally!) our series on working effectively with administrative assistants.

Also, for all of those who went to Podcast Alley and voted for Manager Tools, thank you very much! We achieved a long-held objective of getting in the Top 10 list of all podcasts. We don’t know how long we’ll stay there … but we’re enjoying the moment. And we owe that to all our friends here on Manager Tools. Thank You!

Here’s a brief outline of the 3-part Series:

1. Part 1
• The Role of the Executive
• The Role of the Admin
• The Single Biggest Roadblock
2. Part 2
• Managing the Executive’s Schedule
3. Part 3
• Managing the Executive’s Office
• Managing the Executive’s Relationships
• Managing the Executive’s Administrative Deliverables

One of our most popular podcasts - and it was actually a series of casts - were titled “The Efficient Assistant and The Effective Executive”. We laid out a plan for having a great relationship with one’s assistant, and we get comments and mails almost every day from managers and executives thanking us for sharing what their firm never did. [Think about the penny-wise and pound-foolishness of giving someone an administrative assistant and then not teaching the basics of how to make the investment valuable!] Many of the assistants actually say thanks for the fact that our system recommends that they do a LOT MORE work than what they’re doing now.

But we need to talk about assistants again, because in our original series, we left out a key part of executive and managerial life.

EMAIL.

This cast tells you how to handle email if you have an admin.

Now, if you’ve already come up with 10 (erroneous) reasons why it won’t work for you, listen in. If the CEOs of billion dollar companies can do this… you can too.

You know you’re a manager - really, truly in a role of managing others - when you get frustrated that things don’t happen as fast as they used to. “Gosh, why don’t they GET IT? Can’t they SEE what kind of pressure we are (I AM) under?” What is taking SO *(@((&$^*@^Q@*#% LONG?”

That’s what all that extra pay is for.

If you’ve wondered whether it’s just YOUR team, it’s NOT. We find a lack of a sense of urgency to be pandemic. Most managers spend time complaining about this very thing when we coach them. Executives quickly forget how easy it is to stop draining the swamp as a manager when you keep getting bitten by alligators.

What can you do about it?

Well, rest assured, it’s NOT about “firing your team up” with speeches or exhortations. It’s certainly not going to happen if you “light your team up” with a shotgun blast of “you people have no sense of urgency!!!!”

You know why?

Because most managers are one of the core causes of the problem.

In this cast we tell you why, and how you can solve your problem within two weeks.

Today, we finish up our series on building a sense of urgency in your team.

Here’s a brief outline of the Sense of Urgency series:

1. Ask the right questions
2. State the deadline … don’t ask
3. Know how to combat bad answers
4. Accelerate all deadlines
5. Use passive updating
6. Feedback every time … every time
7. Use dates and times
8. Capture the deadline
9. To heck with the critical path
10. Leverage your admin

Happy Holidays, everyone! And thanks for helping make this year one of our personally rewarding years ever!

So, you’re a manager, and you’ve got a boss and a team.  Let’s assume for a moment that all of your responsibilities - your goals and objectives, rolling up all your tasks, can be represented by a bucket of balls (as in, “juggling a lot of balls.”). 

For discussion purposes, let’s just say that everybody - you, your boss, and all ten members of your team - has TWENTY balls in their bucket.  You have 5 big balls - the ones your boss might well fire you for if you drop them.  And, you have 15 more smaller balls as well (5+15=20).  These are also “important”, though not critical.  Your 20 balls keep you VERY busy - sometimes 80 hours weeks (though not often), and you take less vacation than you’re allowed, and less than your kids would like you to.

Got it?

Now, I’m not saying that this would actually ever HAPPEN …but one day your boss comes to you and presents you with another shiny big ball.  Your SIXTH BIG BALL.

What would an effective manager do?  Would you refuse?  Would you ask what balls of the other 5, or other 20, would he have you NOT DO?  Would you simply hope she wasn’t going to notice that you’re going to drop 5-6-7 of the small balls later?

To be clear, there IS a right, or most effective answer to this question.  It’s like the “does a tree falling in a forest” question you’ve probably heard. That is a zen koan, and there really IS a right answer.

Who’s first?