Coaching Problem Employees

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

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4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you have a difficult subordinate who needs coaching? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Melvin Smith, a professor at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. They talk through what to do when your new employee is slacking off, a new hire needs to adjust to your organization’s culture and communication style, or you have to coach two direct reports who are in conflict with each other.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.9	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.9	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.3	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.3	We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.
0:17.8	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:19.9	We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward.
0:29.6	Today we're talking about coaching problem employees with Melvin Smith.
0:36.6	He's a professor at the
0:38.0	Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. And he's the co-author of the book
0:43.4	Helping People Change, Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. Melvin, thanks for
0:49.3	being in the show. Thanks for having me, Dan, and Allison. So is coaching a problem employee as hard as it seems?
0:55.8	It can be.
0:57.2	I mean, there are a number of situations that can arise that make someone a quote-unquote problem employee.
1:03.4	It requires a lot of resourcefulness and insight as to how to best move through those situations.
1:08.6	How long do you work with a problem employee before you decide it's just not going to work?
1:16.7	They're uncoachable.
1:17.8	I don't know that I have in my mind a specific period of time.
1:21.6	If you get to the point to where you see, there's just no movement occurring, then it might need to move into another phase,
1:27.7	or maybe it's more of a performance management issue than a coaching issue.
1:31.9	Surely, though, in your experience, you've seen some great success stories.
1:36.2	Right, exactly.
	...

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