How to handle a difficult employee! Part 1 or 3

I hope you are not reading this for a quick fix. Quick fixes do not endure!

I am about to share a very powerful and successful method but first, you will need to rewind the clock.

Do you know your employees favorite hobby? What about their family background? Do you know where they live? These are small parts of a larger picture. I am talking about your "relationship" with your employee. Do you even have one?

I am amazed how many supervisors know little or nothing about the team that surrounds them. This team is responsible for creating much of the supervisor's success.

The goal of work place corrections is not what most people think.

It is not

• to change the behavior of the person
• to penalize wrong actions
• to fire the person

Even though all of these are potential issues the real purpose of corrections is to "restore" a damaged relationship.

Come back for part two.

Relationship Destroyers?

What is the surest way to destroy a relationship?

Start with little or no communications!

When husbands and wives have an argument the first thing out the window is typically communications. I have had many arguments with my wife. Nearly every one of them was my fault. Even when I realize I am the cause my initial reaction is to stop talking. A matter of fact, there have been times when I felt compelled to walk away and even leave the house.

I had always been told that "time heals all things." Well, what a lie!

The most crucial need is to look at each other and talk. Let the other know what is on your heart and follow the lead of the discussion.

Though you may not come to a reconciliation you have just started the process to repairing your damaged relationship.

This principle works for parents and kids, teachers and students, and yes, managers and employees.

Good Coaches Vanishing - Part 3

Here is another real life story:

My son's and I were watch a basketball tournament. We had great seats in a raised area over looking two courts. About one minute into the games (both started the same time) a woman tapped me on the shoulder. She asked if I wouldn't mind taping one of the games. She actually said, my husband is coaching on this court and we will be playing the winners from the other court. He wants badly to scout their abilities.

I thought it was presumptuous to think they had already won their game and already looking at the next challenger. I decided to help them out by taping the other game.

Somewhere around 2-3 minutes into the game I recognized what type of coach this man was and better understood their request.

While filming their potential challenger I kept hearing this loud, obnoxious, out of control yelling. With one eye on my filming task I would occasionally glance at the other court. Guess who was the source of all the commotion? It was the husband (coach) of the woman that asked me to film the other game.

He was making such a fool of himself that parents, coaches, referees, and sadly the players, were all watching him with shock and dropped jaws. This was so disturbing that I decided to do something about it.

I turned my attention, as well as the filming, toward this loud coach. I started filming him and with my very own commentary. I filmed him during these tirades and better yet, I videoed the faces of the fans, referees, and players.

To this day I wonder what these people thought when they went to their hotel rooms to view the film. Expecting to see scouting footage, they must have been shocked.

Please, coaches, leaders, parents, and authorities in general, stop sending one message with your words and another with your actions. It is better to be consistently bad then inconsistently good!