Q. Tell me about the first time you managed someone.
A. I started Conductor when I was 23, and my first official management experience was with the first salesperson we hired. He was very difficult to manage, and I did everything wrong as an early manager.
My second week working with this guy, he got a call from somebody who would have been a great new customer for us, but the customer was in California and he said he could talk only at 6 p.m. But my salesperson came to me and said he couldn’t do the call then because he had to go to the gym. My blood was boiling. But I was intimidated by this guy, and I didn’t have the courage to actually say, “What are you doing? This is terrible.”We probably should have fired the guy on the spot. That would be my inclination today. But 18 months later, I had never once given this guy any kind of feedback. And I had my employees from the organization telling me that this guy’s a problem. I ended up letting the guy go, and he was furious. He had every right to be furious, because I had never given him any critical feedback over 18 months. I’d say he was my first real management experience, and I got an F.
Q. So what was the lesson for you?
A. A lot of my growth as a manager has been around conquering my own insecurity and gaining confidence. When you’re confident, you can give people feedback. You can be candid. You feel secure enough to say what’s really on your mind. So the biggest take-away from that was when you’ve got something on your mind, say it. Bring someone in the room and say: “You did this. It really made me feel XYZ.” And having those good conversations is really 80 percent of being an effective manager.
Q. A lot of people go out of their way to avoid difficult conversations.
A. I find them the hardest thing to do in life. Problems drift and grow out of proportion because people never have conversations about them. Some people lack empathy, so they’re not as sensitive to other people’s feelings. It’s easier for them just to say, “Hey, you did this wrong.” For me, I can feel how the other person feels, so I’m very careful about what I say. And I genuinely want to do well for the other person. So you think that when you tell someone something they don’t want to hear, you’re actually hurting their feelings or you’re making them upset. So that becomes a challenge. You learn to realize the best thing you can do for that person is to be as candid as possible.
Every employee who joins the company gets a book called “Fierce Conversations,” and a letter I’ve written that basically says: “Life moves forward one conversation at a time. If you can have effective communication here at the company and if you can learn how to have hard conversations with people, then that’s going to solve most of the problems that come from work experience.”
I think employees often resign from companies because they had a problem with something, and all these little things fester. And they never once share them with anybody. Then they come in and say: “I’m out of here. Here’s my two weeks’ notice.” Their manager will say, “Why are you leaving?” And they’ll answer, “I’m upset about this, this and this.” The company might be able to fix all those things, but it’s too many conversations to unravel, and it’s too late.
Q. So what are some dos and don’ts for giving feedback?
A. The most obvious one is how you start the sentence. If there’s something that’s bothering you, don’t go to the other side of the court. Stay on your side of the court. So you start your sentences with “I feel.” You’re upset about something that someone’s done, and the way to address it is to say: “Bob, you’ve done this, and it really makes me feel like you are not engaged in the organization. Should I be feeling this way?” And then Bob can say to himself, “O.K., he’s allowed to feel how he wants, and he’s asking me if he should be feeling this way.” That’s the right way to approach it.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/business/seth-besmertnik-of-conductor-on-employee-interaction.html?partner=rss&emc=rss