Episode 12 - If You Avoid Hard Conversations, Your Team Already Knows

Transcript

Who likes having hard conversations? Nobody. That's who. Nobody likes having hard conversations. No supervisor wakes up and says, "Oh my gosh, it's going to be a fantastic day. Today is the day I get to talk to my staff person about all the errors that they're making. Oh my gosh, I can't wait. This is going to be glorious." No one ever says that. And why? Because hard conversations are downright unpleasant. They're hard to deliver. They're hard to hear. If you're the supervisor, you're going to share a topic that the other person does not want to hear about and you have no idea how they are going to react to you. Are they going to cry big alligator tears? Are they going to get mad? You may think, are they going to yell at me, cuss at me, argue with me? What if I don't have my information together enough and my staff person can avoid the actual problem altogether?

What if the person deflects? What if I feel like I did when my dad yelled at me or when my mom yelled at me when I was a kid? What if I cry or throw up or my voice shakes or I start sweating through my clothes? What if I handle this conversation wrong and I get into trouble? What if they say I handled this conversation wrong and I get into trouble? What if I go through all of this unpleasantness and I don't see any change in their behavior? Then I'm going to have to do all of this again. Now, it is one thing to have all of these very legitimate concerns and have the difficult conversation anyway. It is another thing to allow these concerns to slow your response down, to delay your response, or to fail to respond all together.

When we are supervisors, we are hyper focused on our work.

That makes sense because our work is pretty consuming. We don't have too many spare minutes to lift our head, look around, and see what's happening around us, but it's a very different story for your staff.

Hello and welcome to Provider Power with your host, Sara Sherman. This is the place for IDD leaders to find solutions, support, and insight. Ready to power up your provider game? Let's get started.

Whether your staff should have time or not, your staff are going to take the time to study you. You may think, "Me? Why study me? I'm not anybody. I'm not a big wig, upper management, or anyone fancy or important. Why would anyone be looking at me? " But they are. And if you think about it, you get it. You're watching your bosses as well. What are they doing? Who are they talking to? Are they really following their own requirements?

Do I really need to follow the requirements? Especially if they don't? What do they seem to really think is important and who are they allowing to slide in their work? And if, when you look at your own bosses, you see any of these shortcomings, you tuck that information away to be used later if needed. Your team is doing the same with you. And if your team notices that you, one, don't have difficult conversations, two, hesitate to have difficult conversations, or three, don't know how to have productive, difficult conversations. They will come to the rapid conclusion that you are not a strong leader. Your team will quickly see your pattern of avoidance and at least some of your staff will take full advantage. Those staff will not see you as a solid leader, meaning they will not respect your leadership or knowledge. They will not believe that they have to follow your instructions because they do not believe you will do anything to them when they don't follow your instructions.

Troublemakers will not only understand you will not address their poor performance. These folks will begin to take over. You will see these staff start to give directions, usually about what is not going to happen at work. And these troublemaking folks will start to create new procedures and directions. And once these wheels are in motion, chaos is not far behind. So what do you do? Obviously, there are many components that impact this situation. Company culture, training, monitoring, policy and procedure, and ultimately comprehensive supervisor training and support. But all of that takes time and you have a pretty serious problem right now. Here's what you do. You need to do two things right this minute. One, you need to know what is supposed to be happening. You must be crystal clear. There is no ability to legitimately challenge you if you know exactly what's supposed to happen.

You can only be challenged if you're not sure. So get crystal clear on what exactly is supposed to be happening and what your staff are supposed to be doing the full time that they're on shift. Okay, you got it?

Now, number two, write it down and track it. If they're on their phone instead of documenting, write that down. If they're talking to coworkers instead of cleaning, write that down. If they refuse to do an outing or work in a different location for the evening because that wasn't the original plan when they clocked in, write that down. Track it. Every time you see this very same problem, track it. Do your best to handle the situation in the moment, of course. Redirect them from the phone to the task that they're supposed to be doing and stick to your guns on the reassignment and track all of it. Have I mentioned you should track it? No. Let me say it again. Track it. Write down the date, time, what happened, what was supposed to happen, what you said, what they said. So one more time. The date, the time.

What happened? What was supposed to happen? The work they're supposed to be doing. What you said to them and what they said to you. As soon as you have a little data, you're beginning to see repeated patterns. You're getting some trends. Take your data and go to the ... Take your data and go to your supervisor or HR. Show them your data and ask for directions. Be honest. If you don't know how to have the conversation or what to say, tell your supervisor or HR that that's your situation. You're not sure how to handle this and ask them for help. Ideally, they offer to sit in with you. They give you the words to say. They practice with you a little bit. All to prepare you to have the conversation that you need to have. And the bonus here is that now you proactively have the buy-in and understanding of your supervisor and HR.

They understand the problem. They are on point with you that it's time for you to have a conversation. So you already know that taking an action here is the appropriate thing to do. And if somebody goes to your supervisor to complain, your supervisor has your back. Now for the conversation. You're going to sit down with the staff person in question privately, of course, and begin with the facts. On April 4th, you were on your phone instead of doing documentation, cleaning, and interaction. This is what I said to you. This is what you said back to me. On April 8th, you were on your phone instead of ... Fill in the blank. This is what I said to you. This is what you said to me. On April 14th, you were on your phone instead of fill in the blank. This is what I said to you. This is what you said to me.

Then you tell them, "Your job requires that you complete, that you complete these tasks. Give them a list." And the phone policy says you cannot be on your phone. Now, what you're going to say next is critical. You're going to say, "Help me understand your decision making process here. Help me understand your decision making process here." And to quote the immortal words of Sheldon Cooper, "Bazinga. The structure of the conversation as I have outlined for you is pretty hard to wiggle around." For example, if your staff person says, "Well, my coworker does this too, and I don't see you saying anything to them," you simply say, "Help me understand your thought process for April 4th, April 8th, and April 14th." If they say to you, if the staff person says to you, "I didn't know about the no phone thing," you can say, "On April 4th, I explained it to you.

This is how you responded to me. On April 8th, the problem appeared again, and I explained it to you. This is how you responded to me. " On April 14th, you get the idea. If they say to you, "Come on, man. My mom and your mom have been friends since before we were born, and I saved you from the runaway bicycle when you were screaming your head off, rolling down the big hill in the park when we were in kindergarten." You say to them, "On April 4th, this is what happened. On April 8th, it happened again and again on April 14th. Tell me about your decision making process." If they start to cry and say they're having a hard time since their pet turtle, Petunia, passed away unexpectedly, you say, "I'm very sorry to hear about Petunia." She was a lovely turtle. On April 4th, you did this and again on April 8th and again on April 14th.

Help me understand your thought process here. If something weird happened that prevented this person from completing their work correctly, no problem. You've created an open space for them to provide you with that information. If they are confused in how to handle something by asking for their thought process, you are positioning yourself to learn what they were thinking. So if they're not adding A and B to equal C because they have some confusion, you have the ability to identify that problem and to correct that problem. Of course, big surprise, you're going to write everything down. And if necessary, take your notes back to your supervisor and/or HR to determine the next best steps given the situation. You can see that with recorded data and upper management support, this conversation is now pretty easy to manage. It may still feel unpleasant, but it's pretty easy to manage this conversation.

There is no need for anxiety or stress. You have facts and facts are pretty hard to dispute. When you manage your team using this data collection process, your team will now see you as on your game. You respond to situations factually, honestly, knowledgeably, consistently, and timely. You are an effective leader. If having hard conversations is an area of struggle for you or any other area of your frontline supervision experience or the frontline supervisors that you support, then Frontline Supervisors Success Academy is for you or your team. In my Frontline Supervisor Success Academy delivered once a month over nine months from May 14th, so enrollment is happening right now. Through January of 2027, supervisors will learn. All the skills that they need to effectively manage their teams, support individuals, and ensure work is done correctly and on time. Things like the difference between management and leadership and when to use each one.

Top tricks for keeping staff well-trained even when they're scattered across multiple locations and shifts. How effective discipline tangoes with monitoring and oversight in perfect harmony. Insider secrets to ensure services are meaningful and moving the individual toward independence. Clear communication techniques that vaporize confusion and keep work moving smoothly. Best practices to capture all of your team's innovative services and weave them into an energized service planning process. Powerful practices to help individuals to gain control over their lives by more fully interacting with the foods they eat. The big brainstorming blitz method for quickly developing a robust schedule of meaningful activities and banish boredom for good. These are just some of the things supervisors will learn in the Frontline Supervisor Success Academy. All in all, taking advantage of all of the learning available, a supervisor can earn 75 hours of National Association of DSP and Frontline Supervisor certified hours.

Enrollment is just $875. For the entire program, if one or two staff from an agency are attending and if three or more staff are attending, enrollment is discounted to $815 per person. This program only opens once per year and enrollment will never be this low again. The link is www.providerpowermoves.com/frontlinesupervisorsuccessacademy. Grab your spot and learn to supervise with confidence, clarity, and authority. I hope to see you there.

And until next time, power on.