How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 3)

This is the third part of a three part series in which I describe how managers should use strategy sessions to address indirect sources of information.  Many managers react to indirect sources of information and pass it along as feedback, when instead they should focus on direct sources of information for providing performance feedback.  When dealing with indirect sources of info, I advocate for “strategy sessions.”

In the example I’m using in this series, you’re receiving information from your employee’s peers and partners that the employee is being “difficult” in meetings.  In my previous articles (part 1 here, and part 2 here), I describe the first six steps for managers to take:

1) Make sure it’s important and worth strategizing about

2) Introduce the conversation as a strategy session

3) Introduce the issue that needs to be strategized share the information that is driving the need for discussion

4) Ask for the employee’s perspective on what the issue is

5) Find points of agreement on what the issue is

6) Strategize on how to resolve the problem

In today’s article, I wrap up the steps for conducting a strategy session with your employee:

7. Agree on what both of you plan to do differently

Since you never directly observed the original behavior, you can’t give quality feedback on the behavior.  You can, however, agree on what should be done moving forward.  This is a form of providing expectations of behavior.   As a result of the strategy session, you and your employee may agree to the following:

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How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 2)

This is the second of a three part series in which I describe how managers should use strategy sessions to address indirect sources of information about their employees.  Many managers react to indirect sources of information and pass it along as feedback, when instead they should focus on direct sources of information for providing performance feedback.  When dealing with indirect sources of info, I advocate for “employee strategy sessions.”

In the example I’m using in this series, you’re receiving information from your employee’s peers and partners that the employee is being “difficult” in meetings.  In my previous article, I describe the first three steps for managers to take:

1) Make sure it’s important and worth strategizing about

2) Introduce the conversation as a strategy session

3) Introduce the issue that needs to be strategized share the information that is driving the need for discussion

In today’s article, we continue the steps for conducting a strategy session with your employee:

4. Ask for the employee’s perspective on what the issue is

You can say, “I’d like your perspective on what the issue is and what is creating it.”  In our example, others may find the employee difficult, but perhaps the others are being difficult to the employee.  You don’t know, so provide ample space in the conversation for the employee to explain his or her perspective.  You will likely get more robust information than you probably got from the “indirect” sources.  The better the manager listens and understands the employee’s perspective, the more trust will be built between the employee and the manager.  In many instances, the employee will fully admit to being “difficult” and will explain what their behavior was that would be interpreted as such.  But the strategy session is about resolving the issue – not only the employee’s behavior.  So make sure you get the employee’s perspective on what the issue is.

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How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 1)

This is the first part of a three part series on how managers can use “strategy sessions” to improve the performance of their employees and their team, as well as the manager’s own performance.

Managers receive a lot of information about their employees from indirect sources – often much more information than from direct observation.  I frequently write about how it is important that performance feedback be performed based on direct observation, or else it risks being non-specific and non-immediate, and generally becomes useless the less specific and less immediate it is.

However, managers are not often enough in the position to observe directly what it is the employee did exactly and provide this level of performance feedback.  And with all of the indirect information floating around – such as from customers, other employees, bosses and metrics – it becomes difficult to figure out what to do about it.

Here’s an example I’ll use throughout this series:  You are getting “feedback” from your employee’s peers and partners that he was “difficult” during a recent series of meetings.  You’d like to give feedback on this.  But what is it exactly that was “difficult” and why is this happening?  And maybe this “difficult” behavior was actually a good thing?  You really don’t know.

My recommendation is, instead of having a “feedback conversation”, have a “strategy sessions” with your employee.  The idea with strategy sessions is that you partner with your employee to figure out the best course of action moving forward to address the “feedback” (actually, it’s an indirect source of information) and still achieve the goals.  In short, you and your employee strategize together.

This is different from delivering corrective feedback, which is more direct, specific and immediate, with a clear course of behavioral actions that are different the next time it is performed.   Strategy sessions are more along the lines of “What should we do to get the best outcome?”

Here are the first three steps on conducting strategy sessions with an employee:

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