Category Archives: Conflict

How To Tell Your Boss When Your Plate Is Too Full

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Summer is just a few days away! It seems like there is very little difference in climate from late spring to early summer. The changes of season transition so slowly we hardly notice the difference. Work can be like this as well. One minute we seem to have balance in our workload and then slowly over time we find that we are bogged down with too many projects and burn out is just around the corner. So, how do you tell your boss that your plate is too full without being seen as incompetent? Read below for a few tips to help you communicate this difficult message.

Great balancing,

Diane

 P.S. Please share your thoughts about this email or send future topic ideas to diane@dianeamundson.com

How To Tell Your Boss Your Plate Is Too Full

Many of us have experienced the feeling of burn out in our work. Especially during the last few years, as co-workers have been laid off and we have assumed more of their work. So, what are the possible signs of burn out?

 •Missing work days

 •Getting your work day started later and later

 •Physical problems like headaches, backaches, lethargy, trouble sleeping

 •Apathy or lack of interest in work

 •Hopelessness

So what are the dangers to ourselves and others when we allow the burn out to continue?

 •Physical ailments

 •Sloppy work

 •Customers leave

 •Employees leave

We can choose to live out these dangers or we can choose a conversation with our boss to let him or her know that we have too much on our plate. Many of you are thinking that this may be a CLM, or as the military likes to call it, a career limiting move. While getting fired may be an outcome, I believe that you may end up leaving anyway, if you do nothing and the burn out persists. Or, the company may terminate you because of sloppy work.

Why not be proactive and take back your work life? A few options that present themselves during this tough situation would be:

 •Suck it up and just deal with itas you have weathered these burn out storms in the past.(Remember how you made the last job cut and did not get laid off? The best strategy is to keep a low profile and your nose to the grindstone.)

 •Create your own prioritization of tasks from most important to least important with ideas for giving the least important work to other teammates or complete at a later date. (By creating your own list with ideas, you show the ability to think like your boss and have him or her make changes to your ideas versus having them create their own.)

 •Change jobs. This may be a solution, but as many of have experienced when changing jobs, the burn out follows you to a different company…you really haven’t solved anything.

 Whenever I had a staff member approach me with the need to help them prioritize their work, I was not angry, but rather thankful that the employee was “on top of their game” and seeking help with ideas on how to solve the issue. Remember when approaching your boss with a work plate that is overflowing, to emphasize that you are looking out for the organization as a whole and the clients.

 By seeking help with reprioritizing your work you will better serve your internal and external customers and there are few bosses that can argue with that…..

Question for You: Do you have too much on your work plate right now that may cause you to crash and burn in the near future if something doesn’t change?

Action for You:

Review your workload and prioritize your tasks from most important to least important. Brainstorm alternatives to those low priority tasks and present those to your boss. Ask if they see your prioritization the same way and get the help you need…..now before your quality of work slips.

 ”Ideas and not battles mark the forward progress of mankind.”

 L. Ron Hubbard

How to Stop Triangulation in the Workplace

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As I travel to meet with managers, a common complaint I hear is their wish that an employee would stop complaining about another employee to the manager, but rather go to the problem employee directly and voice their concern.  The manager gets tired of being the “go-between” and wishes that employees would resolve issues amongst themselves. 

So, why can’t we just simply walk up to a co-worker and voice our concern?  Why do we feel the need to tell our boss instead of the person with the problem?  Great question which happens to be the topic for today’s newsletter.

 

Great reading,

Diane 

 

How to Stop Triangulation in the Workplace

We know the situation well….we are having difficulty working with someone, and we do not want to approach them and tell them directly, so we do the next best thing….we tell our boss so they will fix the situation.  Where I live, we use the term “Minnesota” nice to explain this behavior as we are known for being too nice to bring up issues with people who are irritating us.  However, we do not hesitate to tell other people about the person’s behavior.  Why do we do this?

Many of us do not know how to confront issues with others, as we fear that the relationship will end if we do, or that person could retaliate and make our work life miserable.  Or, if we do confront that person, they won’t change their behavior, so why try? So, many of us choose to use a technique in psychology called “triangulation”.   Instead of going directly to the person we have an issue with; we choose a third party to voice our concern.  Sometimes we want this third party to side with us and take care of the issue with the other person. This is often why we go to our boss to resolve issues that we could resolve on our own most of the time. 

So, what should you do if your employees try to use you as a pawn in the game of triangulation?  Try the four steps listed below:

 

  • Offer conflict training to all of your staff that outlines how you want employees to handle conflict with each other.   This training would include developing a list of ground rules for having a healthy conversation, developing a process for having the conversation and allowing them to role play the process so they can apply it in a heated moment.

 

Even with great training, some employees will need to reach out to their boss for help at times. When this happens, try these two tips.

 

  • Ask the grieving employee if they just want you to be a sounding board, or if they are looking for a solution.   Some employees only want to vent to you and may not be asking you to do anything, but rather offer perspective.  Maybe you know something about the problem employee that will give them perspective.  Just make sure, as the manager, that you only allow this “venting” to happen once or it will become a habit and you will continue to play the triangulation game.

 

 

  • If the grieving employee is looking for a solution, offer to facilitate a conversation between the two of them once so that a resolution can occur.  As the facilitator you will need to set “safe” ground rules that will allow these two employees to have future conversations without you.  The goal of the facilitation is to come up with a common solution or plan and to role model the way you want them to confront and resolve issues in the future.  Make sure there is a clear understanding of when you would get involved again in the issue, i.e., unwillingness of one employee to follow the agreed upon plan.

Conflict is defined as two people with competing desires not getting their needs met.   It is a natural part of the workplace but can consume a great deal of time as a boss, if you do not have processes in place to help employees deal with it effectively.

Question for You:  Do you continually have people at your door wanting you to get involved in a conflict they have with another employee?  Is it affecting your productivity as a boss?

Action for You:  Offer a training that will specifically address a process that employees should use to resolve conflict first on their own with a co-worker.  If this does not work, make sure you are clear on the role you will play to help the employee, but also be aware of when you have entered the “triangulation” zone and how to remove yourself from this unproductive game.

When to Coach Versus Fire An Employee?

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Sometimes it can be difficult to know how to proceed with an employee that is not living up to their potential.  As a manager, you may spend hours analyzing the situation and wondering if you should terminate the employee, place them in a different position or show them the door.  What are the questions you should ask yourself as a manager to sort through this dilemma?  You will want to read my insights on this tough situation below.

Great sorting!

As I work with many executives throughout the Midwest, I am often asked whether a person can be improved through coaching. I understand this dilemma, because I once managed a staffing organization, and I too, would struggle with what to do with an employee that was not living up to their potential. In an earlier newsletter, I mentioned two critical questions to ask yourself before making a decision to keep or terminate an employee:

 • If this person came to you and said they were leaving, would you be sad or would you be so happy that you want to do cartwheels down the hallway?

 • If you had to do it all over again, would you hire this person?

If you do cartwheels down the hallway and would not hire the person again, it is a “no brainer”…you need to let the person go. But what about those employees that are good, but not great? They may perform below average or average on some aspects of their performance but are above average on other aspects of their work. These employees are living in the gray zone and you may grow tired of agonizing over what to do with them. Enter right stage… behavioral coaching. What exactly is behavioral coaching? It is the process of helping an underperforming employee identify the behavior(s) that are holding them back and giving them the resources to improve their behavior(s) so they are more productive. So who should offer this coaching?

 You have two options; one is to use someone inside your organization and another is to hire an outside coach. Either way you will need to follow these steps for success:

 • Make sure the employee to be coached is fully aware of the low performance areas and is not surprised! Being surprised can lead to defensiveness and will hinder the coaching process. If it turns out that the employee needs to be terminated, the performance evaluation should match your decision. In other words, do not have a stellar evaluation with a raise in his file and then try to defend your termination on behavioral issues.

 • If the behavior violates any company policies, follow your progressive disciplinary process up to and including termination.

 • Identify key stakeholders that have the greatest impact on the employee’s success and gather their perspective on the behavior(s) that need to change. Continue to engage these stakeholders by asking if the behaviors are changing over a twelve month period.

• As the coach, offer the employee tools to help with the behavior change in the format of books- to-read, seminars- to- attend and assessment tools- to- complete.

• If there is a lack of effort from the employee within the first three to six months or no significant change in the twelve months of coaching, the answer becomes clear that you need to help exit the employee from your organization.

Question for You:

Are you struggling with an employee who is not living up to their potential? Are you having trouble deciding what to do next?

 Action for You:

Answer the two powerful questions above, and if you still feel they are worth holding on to, follow the behavioral coaching steps that will allow you to keep a valuable employee and help them become aware of what is holding them back and give them tools for improvement.