ARTICLE

It was a rainy Sunday night and I’d spent a fitful weekend preparing for the uncomfortable conversation I would have with Sherry at 8:30am on Monday morning. As a new manager, I inherited Sherry from her previous boss who had failed to address her performance issues. I decided almost immediately that I would document and address Sherry’s behavior.  She was chronically late. She was often poorly prepared for meetings and presentations. And, she consistently failed to meet delivery deadlines.

I’d solicited support from my Human Resources lead, delivered a verbal warning to Sherry, documented a written warning, and now, Sherry would move to a thirty-day Performance Improvement Plan. As a new manager, I agonized over the impending conversation, but had been advised that this was the right thing to do. Right for our clients, right for the co-workers covering for her, and right for Sherry. Hopefully, she would rally to the occasion, own her shortcomings, and transform her areas of deficiency.

On Monday morning, I was ready to lead the conversation, actually…ready for it to be behind me.

Sherry was not surprised, and three minutes in, she tearfully shared with me that her four-year-old son had been diagnosed with leukemia six months earlier, and that her husband, overwhelmed with the situation, had left them shortly thereafter.

There are no words to describe the flood of emotions I experienced in that moment.

Sherry and I didn’t have a relationship. She reported to me on an organizational chart. I never asked, How was your weekend? as we filled our coffee cups on Monday mornings. I knew very little about Sherry, and did very little to demonstrate my interest in her and her success.

Years later, as an Executive Consultant leading an enterprise-wide change initiative for an international pharma company,  I provided what I believed was a compelling business case that the Project Management Office adopt a process to partner with each leader to assess the relationship he or she had with each employee. I shared my Sherry story. I believed then, and I believe now, that a leader’s capacity to positively influence change with a direct report is strongly correlated to the strength of their existing relationship.

While you may not fully support this performance management hypothesis, I encourage you to consider the following:

1. Honestly critique the relationship you have with each of your direct reports.
   While employees’ personal lives ARE personal, and you should not strive to be an employee’s best friend at work, you are the single most important contact for each of your direct reports at work. Be available. And, don’t just pretend to care. Work to identify at least one attribute or behavior in each of your direct reports that you genuinely value.
2. Commit to one-on-one check-ins with direct reports, and don’t cancel.
   Develop a cadence that works for you. I routinely ask, What can I do to better support you? because I believe the single most important role I have as a leader is to remove the obstacles the prevent employees from doing their best work.
3. Own that employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers.
   Be the manager you choose to be. Commit to one new behavior with employees, individually or collectively. Schedule a First Friday Brainstorm Breakfast. Have employees take turns sharing a reflection or a recent success at team meetings. Honor unsung heroes. Do what works for you, but do something.

If leaders typically make time for employees only when motivated by a crisis or a performance review deadline, they are failing their team and depriving themselves of the opportunity that leading organically affords. Truth be told, the rich conversations that build relationships and deepen employee engagement are never deadline driven. Don’t default to making employees a priority only when there is a problem or an open slot in your schedule. Take a first step, or a next step, to nurturing employee relationships today.