Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want

to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking

about driving your messages home. Roy, a director of quality at a major hospital, wanted some help with a difficult employee.

For 30 minutes, Roy told me all about this fellow's explosive outbursts,

his lack of punctuality at meetings, his failure to share information, and a dozen other issues, all of which were quite serious.

Finally, I asked Roy if I went to this guy right now and I asked him what your top three concerns

are for his performance.

What do you think he'd tell me?

Roy thought, then shook his head and said he wasn't sure.

Okay, let me ask a different question, I said.

If he were going to get a better rating from you at next year's review, what three or four things would he have to change?

He wearily shook his head saying, oh golly, there are so many things.

I told Roy I was concerned the employee was going to continue to fail because he, Roy,

wasn't taking the time to make tough decisions about his own priorities.

Since everything was equally important, there was no place to start and no way to measure

success.

Think about your own pressures for a minute.

Do you need to guide a project team, improve your staff meetings,

direct a division towards next year's goals, or like Roy do you need to develop an

employee? No matter what your objectives are, if you want to hit your goal, people need to know clearly and consistently what's important to you.

In order to drive your messages home, do these four things.

...