Dear Critical Skills,
I have a problem. Our business results are below expectations and the top management thinks it's because managers don't hold employees accountable for results. To be frank, I also see from time to time that employees do things that are not in line with company policies, but their managers don't do anything about it.
Managers receive a lot of training and coaching on leadership and competency development, and they learn skills on how to set expectations, how to monitor and measure results, and how to provide feedback on employee performance. But despite this, my observation is that managers don't want to confront their employees about performance issues in order not to be bad in their eyes.
Our CEO believes that managers who cannot hold their employees accountable for results should be fired. To be honest, I don't think this is the solution, I think managers need to feel comfortable confronting their employees about performance issues.
Do you have any ideas on how I can convince our CEO about this?
Signature,
CHRO
Dear CHRO
You are asking the right question. Why do people who are trained in a particular skill not use it? This has been the research topic of our partner Vitalsmarts for the last thirty years and your question is one of the most frequently asked, so please bear with me as I try to answer this important question.
This would hardly be the right solution. It is more likely an act of frustration and desperation and will most likely lead to a whole host of new problems. At the same time, it doesn't set a good example of what your CEO and senior management want from managers - how managers should behave and what managers should do when dealing with employees who don't live up to their expectations. Is the way to do this by firing them outright? Of course there are other methods.
We know that managers are reluctant to confront their employees, so your diagnosis is correct. Almost always this is perceived as a competence issue. However, managers do not believe that what they have learned in trainings will actually be useful when dealing with their employees. This can happen for several reasons. They may have received only general guidance in the name of training, but do not know exactly what to do and say. Most leadership and competency trainings are long in theory but short in terms of providing authentic skills. Or, even if managers have been introduced to real skills or best practices through the right programs, they may not feel good about how to apply them. They may not even have been given enough time to practice until the new language they are learning is comfortable and they are familiar with the method.
Beyond theeffectiveness of the training , it is also important to look at whether the content is relevant to your pain points. Did the managers see what they learned as a useful tool for their employees? Much of what is taught these days would not pass this test. Trainees look at the examples given and think, "My employees would NEVER react this way", even if I behave this way. If the skills offered are outdated or clumsy, who can blame managers for ignoring the materials presented and not trying to apply them in the workplace?
ACCOUNTABILITY TRAINING
Another common barrier is related to social motivation. That is, if managers are now being asked to hold employees accountable for standards that were previously tolerated, who will take the first step? Who wants to risk being seen as a "tough nut to crack" when everyone else has turned a blind eye to the issue until now? This is why managers wait for others to say something before they speak up.
What if the standard you are asking people to adhere to is something you've been asking for years, but you haven't held people accountable for adhering to it until now? I mean, you haven't made it important as a company culture? You've actually made a big fuss about nothing, and now you expect people to believe you when the real issue comes to the door, when it starts to create bigger problems. You have to make it part of your explanation to the teams that when you talk about the new/old standard, you have to confront yourself as a company, by putting this sad truth out there. People are smart. They know when the company is slacking and they know when they are underperforming and getting away with it. So you need to address this issue and confront the past as part of today's real standard.
In addition, there may be a number of motivational factors that influence the behavior of managers, from the formal reward system to some actions of top management.
So, what to do in the face of these possibilities? You have to get to all the underlying causes. Expand your search for reasons beyond "managers don't want to do what they are told to do". Think about and question what might make it difficult for them to hold others accountable (you can do a pulse survey to understand this) - what barriers can be removed? What motivation and competence components come into play here? Identify these.
In any case, stick to your will and conviction to solve the problem in the right way. Make a quick diagnosis and then share with your CEO the various elements that lead to the reluctance of managers to hold people accountable. Armed with a more complete picture and more accurate solutions, he or she will realize that it is a tangle of problems that is preventing them from doing what you are asking them to do, and that he or she has some homework to do here, and that he or she does not need to fire these people.
Good luck!
Aykan