I had an employee at an old job of mine who thought I was out to get him. I’ve had many “come to Jesus” talks over the course of my career but the one I gave him was simply brutal…brutally honest. Performance wise, he was the worst employee consistently. He might never be at the very bottom of the list but he was constantly in the bottom 10%. Finally, during one of my meetings with him, he asks me a question:
Why do you pick on me?
I paused. I took a breath and realized my initial response wouldn’t work. I was going to answer “What makes you think that?” but it came off as defensive. Plus, I already knew the answer. I was picking on him. What he didn’t understand is my motive. That was the question he was wanting to be answered. So I answered him:
I want you to perform. I don’t want to see you fail nor do I want to hire a new person and go through training and the added expense. The thing I want you to understand that despite me not wanting to do these things, I will go through with them and that all hinges on how you perform. So if you feel that I am picking on you, that is why.
Maybe not the most fantastic answer but the understanding it brought between the employee and myself cemented for me that posturing doesn’t work when dealing with your employees. The defensive answer I was going to give (that I am sure would tempt anyone in the heat of the moment) was the wrong one for the situation. It is a good lesson to learn by practicing conversations with pauses.
July 25, 2006 at 11:48 am
I read your performance, I work in a steel foundry and in a dept. that is all men, and 1 other woman besides myself. I have 9 years in this dept., more then all the newest ones, but not as much as the 3 that have more years then me. I know my job, and know how to get the most out of the equipment, and how to get the best quailtiy out, but it does not do any good, because I am not in the buddy system, which means that the other guy will get the credit, and not have to do the work. So what is your thought on it, and I have gone to the HR guy and it does not do any good.
July 28, 2006 at 10:59 am
Hi, HR Guy:
I would also love to know your thoughts on the comment above from Mari. From a line staff point of view, this is more often the norm than not. If you aren’t “in” then you just aren’t – and it doesn’t matter how well you perform you job, how much of a self-starter you are, how dedicated you are – and when you bring it up to your own HR Guy you become a problem employee. I don’t know, just my thoughts!
July 29, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Dear HR Guy:
I read your post and it reminded me of my situation. It is a high production environment where speed and quality is of the essence. I have an associate degree in Business Management and am studying for a B.S and M.B.A. I know, in fact, it is a science! Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying! Through the education, I learned that simply “picking on” someone doesn’t always do the trick, especially if you have no idea why the person isn’t performing. Many employers opt for discipline of an employee thinking the problem is lack of motivation or lazyness (Theory X), when, in fact, it may be malfunctioning equipment, inefficent plant design,a personal problem or any number of things. In this case, you must get to the heart of the matter and find out what is at the root of it. This is where the “science” of management kicks in and is the most important. I can think of many examples of company failure due to inefficent machinery, lack of ample staff and poor HR performance.
January 30, 2007 at 9:02 am
Hi! Well here I am back again, on one of the topics that to me is one of the worst things that could happen in any type of work, size of the business, or even the size of the dept. that you work in. I check back every once in a while to see if you have commented on what has been sent to you, you have on a number of them. If I thought that this problem, which I should say is the all famous “buddy system”, was all in my mind, I could deal with it, but it’s not. Last July, I left one job in the dept. that I am in to go back to what I was doing before, running the equipment, which for a 51 year old woman, and having to climb ladders, over and under everything, is a pretty great statement in itself. But I never realized how much the buddy system was in play on the 12 hour shift that I am on, the other day at work I was called into the office to have a meeting that was a great surprise to me, with one of the other workers, (who I think I forgot to mention was on the buddy list), he had inform our leadman that he was tired of the auguring with me, and in all innocent I never looked at it that way, it was fun, made time go by faster, having disagreements on our opinions which are different, but it was not taken that way. Also he sat there and in front of the leadman that had trained me years ago, called me a lair, (and yes, never once did the leadman come to my defense), to make a long story short, it came down to that I could not disagree with his opinion, or just step in and get things fixed, that if any help was needed then I could step in. This worker calls the leadman every week after our shifts are over, to talk about work, family, etc. and in turn the leadman also calls this worker. And I have to say that the other day, when the other worker said he was going to call the leadman to get some new parts on the equipment, so that come the weekend he will not have any problems, because when he asks it gets done, because it makes him look good in the bosses’ eyes, all I said was the buddy system does work? My question after all this long winded story is: how do you fight the buddy system? It is not by knowing more about the job, or how many years you have, or anything. Is it wrong when every once in awhile it would be nice to hear “you are doing a good job, thank you”? Or do you stand back and know that the other set of rules are the ones you have to follow, keep your nose to the grindstone. I would really like to know your thoughts on this.
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