When Your Employee Is Underperforming

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many managers struggle with initiating difficult conversations around an individual’s subpar performance. Often, leaders wait way too long to sit down with an employee who isn’t meeting expectations. Leadership coach Jenny Fernandez says that increasing the frequency of feedback and consciously developing better relationships with direct reports help make these conversations easier to start. And she shares how the right preparation, tone, and open-minded approach lead to more effective discussions that improve not just the one-on-one relationship, but also team morale and turnover rates. Fernandez is the author of the HBR article "How to Talk to an Employee Who Isn’t Meeting Expectations."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Got 30 minutes?
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0:12.6	Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IDEA cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.
0:33.0	Feedback is information.
0:40.0	Feedback is information, and when it's negative feedback about job performance
0:45.1	that's a crux moment in the interaction between a manager and a subordinate.
0:49.8	The employee might think they're doing everything right, but the manager doesn't see it that way, and ignoring it does no one any good, not the employee, not their supervisor.
1:01.0	Feedback is a tool to get back on the same page and moving in the same direction, but it can
1:07.0	come as a surprise and that employee might feel misunderstood or threatened, start disengaging
1:12.4	and look for another job.
1:14.0	And if it doesn't come across effectively,
1:16.0	the team and organization can suffer and miss their goals.
1:20.0	It's why many managers often struggle with this moment. It's a skill to give negative feedback in a way that is clear and in a way that encourages
1:29.6	positive behavior change while still supporting your team member.
1:34.7	Our guest today is here with some recommendations.
1:37.6	Jenny Fernandez is a team and executive coach and she's faculty at Columbia and NYU.
1:43.4	She wrote the HBR article,
1:45.4	How to Talk to an employee who isn't meeting expectations.
1:49.5	Jenny, great to have you here.
1:51.3	Thank you, Kurt, it's a pleasure to be here.
	...

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