Stealing Intent

And Other Common Performance Counseling Mistakes

I know you wanted that last piece of cake. You have been angry with me since yesterday.  You don’t love me.  You always think the worst of me. You were hoping I would get caught.

All of those sentences have one thing in common. The accusations of the speaker try to claim knowledge of the feelings, emotions, and intention of the other person.  We can guess what other people are thinking.  And sometimes we may be right.  But we can never be sure.  That makes the speculation dangerous.  It is also stealing.  It is their intention, not ours.  The thief never wins at this tug of war.  And when they lose, they do so in a devastating manner.  It has happened to all of us, and all of us have done it.  Maybe we should hit the pause button, personally and professionally.

At work, especially in the form of counseling, it creates an additional layer of problems.  And far too many supervisors fall prey to it.  Here’s how I see this problem, and a few others, when it comes to counseling individuals, with simple fixes.

Stealing Intent.  Let’s say you supervise Bobby, and you get the feeling that he is not giving his best at work.  The mistake would be to suggest that he does not like work or does not like you as a supervisor.  Either of those may be true or not.  But 1) it doesn’t matter and 2) if you make one of those claims Bobby could accuse you of harassment and getting inside his head.  The fix is to simply address the behavior.  “Bobby, last month your quota rate was 94%, above the goal of 90%.  However, this month your quota slipped to 84%.   We need to raise that back up again.  Can we discuss ways to achieve that?  Are there any impediments to your success where I can assist?”

Attribution of Reasons.  This is the closely related sister to Stealing Intent.  Instead of speculating on the individual’s intentions, they speculate on their behavior.  Jenny has started coming in late and looking a bit disheveled.  The supervisor believes from office conversations that Jenny has begun hanging out with some of the sloppier and disgruntled co-workers, who party every evening after work.  Again, this may be true or not.  The supervisor may even have the best of intentions when they suggest to Jenny that these friends and the partying are contributing to her decreased performance.  However, the supervisor risks the pitfall of making false accusations and at a minimum shaming and embarrassing Jenny.  The solution remains the same, “Jenny, you have been late four times in the last six workdays.  Your uniform has been wrinkled on two of those occasions.   Until recently, your performance has been stellar.  You need to address and fix these issues immediately.  I am here for you if I can help in any way.  I know you can and will do better.”

Overuse of Adverbs and Adjectives.    We are all human and that includes taking things personally sometimes.  We can let our emotions get in the way.  I have seen and heard counseling where the supervisor will say things like, “your appearance has been filthy and disappointing… my feelings were hurt when you maliciously went over my head…  your negative attitude is adversely impacting the whole team….”  I advise supervisors to double-check any adverb and adjective to ensure they are actually necessary, accurate, and impersonal.  I refer to this approach as being factually dispassionate.  Address the standard.  Address the behavior.  Identify essential outcomes. 

The True Purpose for Counseling.   The pitfalls of intentions, reasons, and word choice are more easily corrected when we remember why we are counseling – to improve performance.  The pitfalls do not achieve that.  The path to performance begins with a clear and attainable performance plan.  The plan is then followed by regular intervals of reviews, where accomplishments and areas of improvement are discussed in a two-way conversation.  On those occasions where a member of the team is not meeting the standard, the counseling session is an opportunity to emphasize the standard, identify the behavior, and work together to determine a path forward that will help the team member succeed.  It can and should be a positive experience.  Team members have feelings too and can quickly determine if you are trying to punish them or to help them.

As you re reading this, I know you will disregard most of it.  You think you know better.  Even if you took the time to read this, you don’t have time to make changes because you waste too much time on emails.  In all reality, you don’t even care about helping people.  It’s just a crappy paycheck and job to you.

See what I did there?  It doesn’t feel good.  If it doesn’t feel good to receive, maybe we should think twice before we deliver. 

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