Page 161 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

Dave was invited into a company that had gone through
four new performance appraisal systems in four years, and he
was asked to recommend new performance appraisal system
number five. If four out of four systems do not work, it may
not be the systems that are at fault but their implementation.
He quickly discovered that leaders at this company were not
holding people accountable for goals they set. When leaders
shirk candid conversations about accountability, no system
will work. We suggest three phrases that can help these con-
versations go better:

1. “Help me understand.” These words put the leader
in a coaching stance where the leader wants to learn,
not boss. “Help me understand what went wrong” and
“Help me understand what went right” both spur helpful
discussions.
2. “. . . the data.” Sharing with the employee the specific
data that indicate problems or successes helps everyone
get results focused (e.g., missed deadlines, low customer
service scores, low quality scores, low revenues).
3. “. . . so that we can solve the problem?” gets the
conversation focused on fixing the problem, not finding
someone to blame. The focus is on we, not you or me.

When employees consistently make mistakes they don’t
learn from, leaders need to move decisively to replace them.
When Dave interviews leaders who have been through a
transformation, he asks, “If you had to do it over again, what
would you do differently?” Inevitably the answer is “I would
move quicker. I knew early on that X did not have the skills
or commitment we needed, but I stayed with X for too long,
hoping he [or she] would adapt and change.”

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