Managerial thinking• If these employees can listen to me they will

see logic of may position-- a kind of “tell and sell”.

• The employees also think the same way as the managers do.

• Each of us has a unique profile of motivational drivers, values, and biases, and

we have different ideas about what is reasonable.

• Frequent mismatch of perception.• Employee either evades attempts to

motivation or if tagged –quickly wriggles free.• “Sure boss” meetings but no change

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Managers dealing with problem employees set them selves an impossible goal.

A fundamental rule of management is that you cant change people’s character; or control their actions most of the time Change comes from within or not at all

The truth

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New approach

•Shift the responsibility for motivation from subject to object.

•It would involve a change in perspective

•Manager needs to look at the employee not as a problem to be

solved but as a person to be understood

Guiding principles are

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1. Everyone has motivational energy• May not be at work but think of hobbies and other

interests.2. This energy is often blocked in the work place

• Impediments may be –stresses at home• Accumulated incrementally over the years• Frustrated dreams or broken promises at work

• These lead to positive energy into negative attitudes and behavior or simply to non work activities.

• Common blockages occur when employees feel that they are not cared for by their bosses.

3. Removing blockages require employee participation.• Take a judo like approach –find the person’s locus of

energy and leverage it to achieve your ends.• Instead of pushing the solution on people with force of

your arguments, pull solutions out of them.

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Objections

•It is soft and squishy•Your thinking could be “ I am accountable for my business, don’t expect me to be sympathetic with “blocked” employees who refuse to toe the

line

•Method is based on empathy and it is any

thing but soft

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Could be truly spongy method is what we are using now

•Repeatedly trying to Convince but unsuccessfully to improve their performance.

•In exasperation end up sacking them.isnt that a sign of failure, not firmness

We require to move beyond the point of “stuckness” that characterizes so

many relationships with problem people

Approach is designed to create a resolution –not necessarily a solution.

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Step 1: create a rich picture

•A problem employee is taken through the usual appraisal routines- management meetings – and out –at times after a

period of non-performance. •Shortly thereafter manager learns from the person’s peer

group something that may have contributed to poor performance.

•May be the pride of the employee or natural reserve.•Individual disliked or mistrusted the manager

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•Managerial 1st step is• work to understand where the employee is coming from •What drives this person? And what blocks those drives•What might happen if the impediments are removed•What does the world look like from where the employee is?•How have his expectations and desires been molded by key past experiences?•What passions govern his choices? And what stifles these passions in the workplace?

Difficult! Not so much if you really care

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A need To look into your own role in the problem you are trying to solve

•Direct bosses at times are the most potent source of employee dissatisfaction

•Many a times chief reason for employee turnover•Manager- inadvertently could be the cause of

employees lack of motivation for one reason or the other.

•May be ma•manager is bringing out the worst rather than the best

in the employee

Analyze the context, is something about the current situation bringing

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Step 2: Reframe your goals

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Step 3: Stage the encounter

•Affirmative assertion— you affirm the employee‘s past and future value to the

organization.•Leverage questioning—intense and extended enquiry to test your situational hypothesis.

•Moment of truth– parties reach some agreement on at least part of the problem

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The Mulberry bush chase

Have you been going round and round with someone, having the same fruitless

conversation over and over? That is sure sign of the new approach discard your assumption about the person and start

afresh.

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The Huckster Hazard

Have been trying to “tell and sell”-that is, convince the person of the reasonableness of your position? Don’t be an evangelist. Be a

psychologist. The most successful sales people discover and fulfill people’s needs rather than

try to change them.

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The Ignorance-is-bliss syndrome

Have you been contentedly clueless, neither knowing nor caring much about what makes

an employee tick? You have to dig deeper to find out what drives that person – and what

may be blocking those drivers

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The Self-centeredness trap

Do the words that spring to mind when you think about this person’s behavior reflect a blinkered point of view? ask yourself what words this individual would use to describe those same behaviors. it may give you a

fresh insight into the nature of the problem

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The Hanging Judge tendency

Have you been proudly occupying a moral high ground in your perspective on this person? It wont help to think of your

employee as in the wrong while you act out the role of judge or high priest. Decide now whether you really want to solve the

problem or sit in judgment

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The Monochrome Vision

Have you failed to search for any redeeming feature in this person? think

hard. Because discovering even one positive characteristic in some one can color your relationship in entirely new

ways and create a starting point for you to connect

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The Denial danger

Have you been dismissing out of hand how someone perceives you? Remember the dictum, “if something is perceived as real, it is real in its consequences”. It is the other person’s reality you are going to have to work with, not just

your own.

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