Recognition is the greatest motivator.
-- Gerard C. Ekedal

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Background

One of the most common development needs of people who have supervisory responsibility involves confronting employee problems. Most supervisors just do not do this very well. The situation is all too familiar: Tom D is technically competent in his profession and is a pretty nice guy. He gets promoted and now supervises a group of ten employees. Soon, some of the employees begin to express dissatisfaction with his supervision. They all say that, although "Tom's a nice guy and I like him as a person," he does not deal with employee performance problems and instances of misbehavior when they occur. This has caused the unit's productivity to drop and coworkers to become dissatisfied with and critical of his leadership. Tom D recognizes that, although things are OK at the moment, if he does not learn to address these kinds of issues, he will find it increasingly difficult for his group to meet its productivity standards. He is now resolved to develop the skills that he knows he will need to be successful in his new supervisory role.

Initial Development Plan

1. Title

2. Purpose

3. Measures

4. Actions and Due Dates

5. Support

6. Follow Up

Notes on the Development Plan

In the Title and Purpose sections, Tom D specifies the type of supervisory situation he needs to become competent at handling and explains the importance of becoming better able to handle these situations.

In the Measures section, he sets up two measures. One involves keeping a scorecard, which is an ongoing measure that Tom D himself will create and maintain. The other measure takes advantage of the fact that his organization conducts an annual employee survey that provides feedback to individual supervisors on how their work groups rate them.

For Support, Tom D will ask his supervisor to serve as a coach, providing him with feedback as he tries out new behaviors. He will also get the OK to attend a workshop.

In the Follow Up section, he sets a date to revisit the plan and update it based on what he has learned after completing the initial actions.

Preparatory vs. On-the-Job Actions

In the Actions section, Tom D has listed four actions to begin working on right away. Notice that these actions fall into two categories:

• Preparatory, or "backstage," actions These include asking his supervisor for advice, preparing scripts for specific problem situations and attending a workshop. None of these involves actually doing anything differently on the job. They are all about learning about how to handle employee problems.
• On-the-job, "live" actions The one action in this category, confronting problems when he sees them, requires him to change his behavior to take concrete action in situations where, since his promotion to supervisor, he has done nothing.

The preparatory actions will help Tom D figure out what to do when an employee problem arises. The tips he gets from his supervisor may be helpful.

Script Writing

A surprisingly powerful method for planning how to handle problem situations when they arise is the script writing method. Here is how it works:

• First, Tom D lists recent incidents where he should have confronted an employee about substandard job performance or inappropriate behavior, but did not. Suppose, for example, that he was in the employee break area yesterday and saw a group of his employees having coffee and shooting the breeze. As he was getting his own cup, one of the employees, Bob, made inappropriately cutting remarks to Teresa a form of horseplay for Bob but clearly something unwelcome and embarrassing to Teresa. So, Tom D jots down that situation and a few others that are relevant to this development need.
• Second, for each situation, he describes what he actually did the old behavior that he wants to improve upon. In the break-room incident, the "old behavior" was that he laughed along with Bob and the rest of the guys, not wanting to make a scene or to confront Bob. He secretly hopes Bob will not engage in this merciless teasing of Teresa or anybody else again.
• Third, Tom D describes what he will do when similar situations occur in the future the new behavior. In many cases, it amounts to actually writing out a script. In Tom D's case, the new behavior might be to take Bob aside immediately, let him know that what he did was inappropriate, and request that he apologize to Teresa.

Script writing can be structured by using a very simple template, such as the following.

Situation:

Your old behavior (what you did in that situation):

Your new behavior (what you will do when the situation, or one like it, recurs):

The concept of scripting new behavior is quite simple, but many self-developers struggle with it at first. The natural tendency is to be overly general in describing past behavior. What is needed is a description of specific behavior. In the case of interaction situations, such as the one described with Bob and Teresa, above, it is helpful to actually script out what was done and said in a specific incident.

With a very specific picture of the "before" behavior, you can easily write a new script that improves upon the original. That much can be done without attending a supervisory-skills workshop or reading a textbook chapter on handling employee problems. After attending the workshop or doing some reading, you can revise or add to the script, further strengthening your action plan for a new behavior.

Many development plans are efforts to change what would be considered old habits. Habits are ingrained behaviors that occur almost automatically when you encounter a situational cue. The insensitive supervisor reflexively "nails" a subordinate whenever the subordinate's performance falls short of his standards. The manager with a poor track record for decision-making always accepts decision statements as they are presented to her, never considering more than two black-or-white options.

To break such habits that is, to overcome the force of behavioral inertia you must have well-rehearsed alternative behaviors ready whenever the next interaction or decision opportunity arises. Diligent developers prepare and actually rehearse new behaviors. Of course, you cannot anticipate every situation that might possibly call for new behavior. And it is not possible to script thoroughly, for example, how to handle Bob the next time he belittles a fellow employee. But by being alert to the specific situations described in your action scenarios, you also become alert to a wide array of similar situations. By being prepared to take a new approach and having a new set of words at the ready, you can break free of the old script and carry on an interaction that takes its lead from those first few scripted words.

Anticipating Obstacles

Things will happen to prevent Tom D from executing his development plan as written. It is always a useful exercise to anticipate obstacles and to figure out ways to avoid or minimize the most likely obstacles. To that end, he uses the following tickler list:

• Anticipate obstacles What is going to get in the way of successfully implementing your development plan?
• Rate their likelihood Rate each obstacle in terms of how likely it is to happen. Use the high-medium-low (H-M-L) scale.
• Rate their seriousness How serious would each obstacle be if it did happen?
• Figure out what to do For the obstacles that are both likely and serious, what can you do to prevent or minimize them?
• Revise your plan Build your actions for dealing with the obstacles into your development plan. Add them to your calendar or your to-do list.

Here is what Tom D's obstacle chart might look like:

Obstacles
Obstacle	How likely? (H-M-L)	How serious? (H-M-L)	Action
I probably won't be able to attend a workshop for another month or two.	H	M	Take an online course instead.
I won't have the guts to confront employees.	M	H	Stick to the plan.
Employees will resent my "changing the rules."	H	H	Introduce the "new rules" at a staff meeting.

The obstacle that is most serious and most likely to happen, according to Tom D, is that employees will resent his "changing the rules." That is, employees will perceive that a new standard is being imposed on them, without advance notice. His solution is to give them notice by informing them of the change at a staff meeting. Keep in mind that this is his perception. You might consider this a very positive change in behavior on Tom's part and that his employees would welcome it. Chances are, it will be welcomed by most employees but resisted by the employees who are sliding by or who engage in the inappropriate behaviors that are causing Tom grief in the first place. At any rate, the important point is that his solution is to explain his new approach at a meeting. This addition to his development plan will undoubtedly strengthen it and give him greater resolve and confidence to stick with the plan.

Later

Keeping Track

A month after initiating his development plan, Tom D reviews his measures to see what kind of track record he has in handling employee problems since he started keeping track. He probably notes considerable improvement in the number of situations he has actually addressed and perhaps a modest record of problem resolution.

Creating Discussion Templates

Having completed a supervisory skills course, he can now create a more sophisticated template for handling employee performance and behavior problems. He combines the general layout of the scripts he had prepared earlier with the "action steps" and "key principles" he learned in the supervisory skills course. He creates two templates one for performance issues and one for inappropriate behavior and posts them on his desk, committing them to memory. Here's the template for inappropriate behavior:

Discussion Template for Confronting Inappropriate Employee Behavior

Rising to the Challenge

There is a case at hand that Tom D needs to address. It involves Elizabeth K's performance. Her performance has never been adequate and, since Tom D became supervisor, her performance has deteriorated further. The situation can now serve as a test case for him.

Imagine how such a test case can give a significant boost to Tom D's development. Everyone in the work group knows there is a problem with Elizabeth K's performance and they are waiting to see how Tom D handles it. So, it is a "high profile" case. For Tom D, there is the risk of public failure — if he avoids confronting the problem or is unable to effect any change in Elizabeth 's performance or her status. His manager will be watching closely to see how he handles the problem. He will be stepping into territory that, for him, is uncharted, as he is a new supervisor with no experience with this kind of situation. And he must assert himself and display aggressive leadership to pull this off.

The presence of all these elements of challenge will work collectively to enhance the developmental value of this one action. Recall that one of the secret ingredients of effective development is to push yourself out of your comfort zone, to face a challenge and to engage new behaviors in order to achieve a specific outcome where the stakes are high.