“I lost one of my top performers.”
Who did you lose?
“Joe, my team lead. He’s a senior member of the team. One of my go-to people who gets things done.”
Any chance you can retain him?
“He hasn’t resigned. But I think he quit on me.”
What happened?
“I asked Joe to have a conversation with Basil, a junior member on my team. Basil is kind of quiet. I need him to speak up. He troubleshoots production issues in a silo. I need him to actively communicate with other teams. Joe does pretty well at communicating across teams. So I asked Joe to coach Basil.”
Did you write up your coaching plan?
“No need. Joe and I have been working together for years. He gets what needs to be done.”
Has Joe started coaching Basil?
“Not yet.”
Why not?
“Instead of talking to Basil, Joe came back to me. He was upset and he unloaded on me. He thinks I accused him of stealing the spotlight from Basil!”
What gave Joe that idea?
“We had a high-profile outage recently. Basil quietly fought the fire in the background. Joe supported Basil. Since Joe was so vocal during the outage, he gave the impression that he resolved the issue. Basil really put out the fire. The outage triggered me to approach Joe about having the coaching conversation with Basil.”
Did you give credit to Joe for putting out the fire?
“No! Joe didn’t take credit either. When I first spoke to Joe about coaching Basil, I pointed out how Basil’s silence during the outage caused other teams to believe that Joe had owned and resolved the issue. I used the outage as an example of how I need Basil to speak up.”
Now, you have a mess. Joe wrongly believes you accused him of taking credit for Basil’s accomplishment.
“Exactly!”
Welcome to leadership world.
Things seem to be going fine. The work is getting done. Your team is engaged. Everything is going well. You’re feeling pretty good about the state of your world. Sit back and enjoy the smooth ride. For a little while. Because it never lasts.
Look out!
Disaster incoming.
Just like that. One seemingly routine conversation with a team lead rocks your idyllic world. After Joe makes his erroneous accusation, you find yourself saying, “I left my bed for this?”
For THIS?
Seriously?
Yeah. That’s one of the frustrations of being in a leadership role. Things seem to be going well until things go sideways. Or backwards. Or upside down! That’s okay though. Conflict management is part of our jobs. I think self-inflicted conflicts, like the misunderstanding between Joe and his boss, are worse than externally triggered conflicts. As managers, we put considerable efforts into resolving conflicts, expending time and energy to settle disputes. We never want to be the catalyst for a conflict. Miscommunication is one of the surest ways to shoot ourselves in the foot.
“Right. All I wanted was for Joe to coach Basil to speak up. How am I going to fix this?”
In this scenario, we have three problems to solve:
- Manager miscommunication – Failure to articulate a clear course of action to Joe
- Self-inflicted conflict – Miscommunication angered and demoralized Joe
- Original problem – Improve Basil’s cross-team communication engagement
Let’s solve each problem.
Manager miscommunication
Return to the beginning of this post. Joe’s boss made this statement: “I lost one of my top performers.” Sounds like Joe resigned. Right? Or maybe the company let him go. We don’t know for sure. Those types of ambiguous statements lead to misunderstandings between people. There’s a strong likelihood that ambiguity in the message delivery caused Joe to misinterpret the purpose of the conversation with his boss, leading Joe to blame himself and react by quiet quitting.
Although ambiguity is the likely cause of the misunderstanding, don’t make assumptions. Meet with Joe. Give him a chance to recount his version of your previous conversation. Let him do the talking. Your job is to listen and ask clarifying questions. Use his feedback to identify your communication miscues from the previous conversation. Learn from your mistakes. Note the areas where you need to improve your communication skills.
Self-inflicted conflict
As a manager, your job is to clearly communicate the intent of your requests to your team. You failed Joe. You miscommunicated your coaching request. Now, a top performer on your team is mad at you and he quiet quit on you. Time for you to resolve your self-inflicted conflict.
During your meeting with Joe, give him a chance to vent. Let him voice his frustrations. Listening is the key. Don’t interrupt or talk over him. You owe him a safe space to air out his grievances. Admit your fault in the miscommunication mess. Apologize to Joe for causing the misunderstanding because that’s the right thing to do when you’re wrong.
You’re not done yet. Joe feels demoralized. One conversation isn’t enough to boost his morale. Rebuilding his morale may take some time. Going forward, remember to recognize Joe for his accomplishments. Make sure he knows that you appreciate him as a team lead.
Original problem
We solved two of the problems. We understand what went wrong during our original conversation with Joe. For follow-up, we’re going to improve our communication skills. We smoothed over our self-inflicted conflict with Joe. For follow-up, we’re going to rebuild Joe’s morale over time. Now, we have to tackle the original problem, improving Basil’s cross-team engagement.
Close your meeting with Joe with a plan to improve Basil’s engagement. You and Joe need to explicitly agree upon the action plan for coaching Basil. Remember how you didn’t document the coaching plan on the first go-around? You learned your lesson from that mistake. Document the action plan this time. The documented plan represents your agreement with Joe. Just as important, make sure you document and agree upon the desired outcome for your coaching action plan, including milestones and goals. Don’t leave the table with any dangling ambiguities.
Conclusion
Miscommunication from managers can trigger self-inflicted conflicts with their team members. Instead of shooting yourself in the foot, make sure you clearly document actions and outcomes with your team. Most important of all, make explicit agreements with your team members to set the expectations for those actions and outcomes. Give yourself a good reason to leave your bed in the morning.