What we've got here is failure to communicate. . .

Strother Martin as "The Captain" nailed it . . .

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

Early on in my career, I was conducting performance counseling with an employee, who in this case was clearly a poor performer and not meeting standards. In this counseling session I was poised to address issues of this individual’s poor past performance with a strong message that, if his performance didn’t immediately improve, the result would be his termination.

Unexpectedly, as the conversation unfolded it became apparent that a huge disconnect existed between the two of us. While I was warning this individual that improvement was critical to ensure his continued employment, his response to me was that he thought he was doing a great job, and frankly was hoping that the meeting was called to consider him for a promotion. As you might imagine, I was totally blown away. And yes, I thought to myself, “what we've got here is failure to communicate."

I’ve reflected on that conversation many times, and to this day can’t figure out how in the world that employee could ever think that his performance was anything but poor. Too many negative events had transpired leading up to that point, which were clear indications of performance problems. And predictably, as the story turned out, the employee was eventually terminated for cause.

Nevertheless, I learned a very valuable lesson - And since that day, I’ve reflected many times on how I could have done a better job of clearly communicating in advance to that employee that he wasn’t performing as expected and required. It made me realize that as a manager it’s my responsibility to continually be crystal clear on my assessment of employee performance, and to communicate that assessment concisely, directly, and timely to my employees. I also learned the value of two-way communication, and of the importance in getting acknowledgement back that my message has been heard and understood.

The takeaway - Because of that incident, I’ve become a better manager and learned to proactively “manage” the relationship with employees. I find that it creates a more honest and transparent environment, keeps focus on team objectives, and mercifully helps avoid any of those uncomfortable “failure to communicate” conversations