This is more effective in motivating him or her to improve because it demonstrates that you are invested in the employee’s growth and development.īe transparent. Help them to recognize it immediately, and discuss ways to modify the behavior in the future.įor example, if an employee is known for derailing meetings, talk with the person before the next meeting, and provide coaching in better group dynamic strategies. Talk with your employees in the moment as soon as undesirable behavior occurs. Instead, Come to the Table with Empathy and SolutionsĪs leaders, we must do better by our employees and give them the feedback they crave (both positive and negative), along with the opportunity to improve behavior before it reaches the point of no return. If your manager says you’re doing fine, what does that even mean? Can you truly believe him or her? Or is your manager waiting to drop a bomb on you unexpectedly?
COME TO JESUS MOMENT FULL
When employees have to rely on a “come to Jesus” discussion to get the full picture of their esteem with management, it completely erodes their trust in leadership.
Leadership discussed the situation frequently behind closed doors, and at one point, a VP of engineering joked, “Please don’t inflict on us!” Everyone laughed, but it exposed a hidden truth: The product manager had no idea his team didn’t like working with him until he was passed over for leading a new project, forcing a “come to Jesus” chat about his behavior with his boss. I’ve seen this last bulletpoint firsthand with a product manager who was not well liked by his engineering team. They want transparency from leadership, but “come to Jesus” talks reinforce the old “behind the curtain” style of leadership in which judgments about employees are shared privately in management circles but not with the employees themselves. Research consistently shows that employees want to know where they stand. It puts the person on the defensive, breeding anger and resentment.
COME TO JESUS MOMENT HOW TO
Telling an employee “This has been a problem, and we can no longer tolerate it” immediately prompts him or her to comb through past behavior to try to figure out where things went wrong rather than focusing on how to improve. Dissecting past events won’t change the past. Threatening someone’s job is rarely part of any productive conversation. If the employee was aware of the problem but not the severity, the person will feel he or she is being “put on notice” rather than being given a genuine opportunity to improve. If the employee wasn’t aware the behavior was an issue (which is often the case), he or she immediately feels attacked or that he or she has already been blacklisted. Threatening someone’s livelihood (implicitly or explicitly) instills feelings of dread and defeat right off the bat. In either scenario, this conversation makes the problem worse for three reasons: This happens when managers struggle to give corrective feedback, despite research that shows employees actually prefer negative feedback over praise or recognition. Why? Either the employee has no idea the behavior is an issue, so he or she naturally goes into panic mode when his or her livelihood is threatened without warning, or the employee is aware of the issue but hasn’t fully grasped the severity. If you’re ready to lower the boom with an employee and issue an ultimatum (“Either this gets better or you’re out of here”), you’re sabotaging any chance for recovery. In the workplace, a “come to Jesus” meeting often only takes place when an employee’s behavior or performance has become so problematic that management is at a crossroads: There must be immediate improvement or you’re fired.īy this point, a “come to Jesus” conversation actually compounds the problem rather than fixes it.
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