How to convince my boss that coaching a direct for six months is worth the time.

Dear Manager-Tools Managers,

BLUF: How to convince my boss that it is worth coaching a direct for six months to give him a chance to improve. How to start the process of coaching when I have only just started feedback (positive for the next six weeks)?

[Sorry this has turned out much longer that I thought it would: ]

Upfront: I have just listened to the "How to fire someone" podcast, which I found quite helpful.

Background: I have started my first-time manager role in a new company about 5 months ago. I started O3s three weeks in and make about 80% of them. I struggled to introduce the feedback model. I did so last week, i.e. only positive feedback for six weeks now. I am a high D, high I.

Situation: I have a direct, let us call him Dan, who keeps having run-ins with my peer, call him Peter. I think the cause of these run-ins is bad communication and some resentment on my directs side. Dan has been with the company for 8 years. Peter was brought in about 11 months ago to take over the sales management position which the CEO held (we are a small company). Dan is employed for technical support. He is an average performer. Before Peter came in, Dan used to take over some sales responsibilities that helped keep the company afloat during bad times. He was in regular contact with the CEO then and apparently basked in the attention he got. He is not really suited for a sales position for various reasons and we really need him for support. Dan has developed a bit of a network and often receives information from customers or potential customers, which he is reluctant to share with Peter. He often goes straight to the CEO and ignores Peter. Peter is getting more and more frustrated with him, when Dan omits useful information from him. Unfortunately when Dan shares information, he does it often in a say sub-optimal manner, which Peter interprets as insults (and I have to agree with this on occasions). Dan tells me he feels pushed out by Peter. Dan doesn't really spend more than two hours a week in sales related work, but because his communication style with Peter is so poor he no longer gets the attention for his sales activities from the CEO. Dan tells me that he finds is much easier to talk to the CEO.

Since Dan is my direct, Peter has made it clear to me a number of times that he wants Dan gone, as he thinks that Dan cannot change his behavior towards him. As the manager of the support team, I currently cannot afford to loose Dan. I also don't want to lose him. I would rather start coaching him to become a better communicator. Talking to Dan about leaving the sales stuff be and focusing on his actual job, he keeps telling me that he feels pushed out and that he is thinking about leaving the company. I have taken to giving him more technical support related work, in fact so much, that he really shouldn't have much time left to do anything sales relevant.

There have been a few issues involving Peter and Dan and some bad communication on both sides. Each admits (without being prompted), that they don't like each other. The last issue between Peter and Dan occurred on Friday, when Dan wrote an email to Peter informing him about a customer being interested in purchasing a small product. The information that was interesting only to Peter and myself maybe. Dan addressed the email to Peter, myself, the CEO and cc-ed in our chief developer. His choice of words made it sound like Dan is telling Peter how to do his job, with Peter's boss and peer in cc. They had a verbal outfall in Peter's office, which Peter described to me like he had pointed out to Dan that the email was inappropriate. During our conversation Peter implied that Dan had to go. Afterwards Dan came to me and told me that Peter had yelled at him. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, I believe. I talked to Dan about his wording in the email and he understood that he is not in a position where his choice of words can be interpreted as telling Peter in how to do his job. Dan seemed to understand and I encouraged him to show some real greatness of character by going to Peter and admitting his poor choice of words and possibly apologize. Dan said he will think about it and maybe talk to Peter on Monday. The CEO ran into Dan, as he was on his way out. Dan had tears in his eyes. My boss is swaying between Peter's wish to get rid of Dan and mine, to hang on to Dan, because I see some potential for improvement, which the CEO doesn't see ("Dan will never change").

To come back to my question: "How to convince my boss that it is worth coaching a direct for six months to give him a chance to improve. How to start the process of coaching when I have only just started feedback (positive for the next six weeks)?"

I guess I could do with some coaching on how to convey information in a more concise way! ;)

Hope to hear from some of you.