If you work in education, healthcare, retail, call centers, or other arenas in which you can’t call “time out” to work on a performance issue, then you know just what I mean. You can’t put a classroom full of students or a store full of customers on hold. You have no choice, and it’s less than ideal, but how can you make the most of it?
The first thing is to ask yourself is: is it operational or is it personal? If the issue is purely operational, make sure you don’t correct someone in front of customers (it’s easy to forget that they’re even there). If the failing is personal, specifically if your interaction will affect the confidence or motivation of the team member, then find a way to make it private.
When you’re correcting performance in the moment, it is not enough to let someone know how he’s doing right now. You also have to define what you mean by “now.” Has his performance been low for three days? Three weeks? Three months? And how long is “low” acceptable before it is a problem? It varies by task, but defining the now and then communicating it is your responsibility. The payback is that in defining “now” you acknowledge whether you haven’t given the problem enough time or whether it’s gone on too long.
The first consideration tells you where to deal with a performance issue; the second tells you when.
About the Author: Don Brown
Don Brown is the developer of ‘The Leader’s Daily’ and author of “Bring Out the Best in Every Employee” (McGraw-Hill), “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – in Sales” (McGraw-Hill) and “Situational Service® – Customer Care for the Practitioner.”
Don has spent 30 years ‘helping people with people’ for the likes of Anheuser-Busch, Ford Motor Company, United Airlines, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Jaguar Cars, McLaren Health, and Hilton Hotels. You can email him at Don@DonBrown.Org.
