#379 Dealing with employee mistakes

Dealing with employee mistakes

Sustainable practices with a real learning effect

Mistakes happen.

This sentence is as true as it is obvious. A smooth flow of processes, projects and tasks is essential for a high-performance organisation. Recently, we have repeatedly dealt with the mistakes made by leaders. It is at least as important to deal with errors when they are caused by employees. A sustainable and effective approach is particularly important at management level.

But what does this look like?

Differentiation

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with mistakes. Anyone who claims that there are ‘the three secret ways to success with mistakes’ has obviously spent too much time with entertainment journals. In serious approaches, a distinction is made between mistakes, deficient performance and poor performance.

Mistakes or errors are usually coincidental. If you have a person who usually performs a task well, but forgets something on one day and the mistake occurs, this is still a nuisance, but you need to take it less serious.

The deficient performance is an objectively verifiable issue. If 500 units of a product are to be produced per pallet and it is repeatedly found that between 492 and 497 units per pallet are delivered, including customer complaints, there is a greater need for action here.

The most comprehensive category is poor performance. If, for example, a person in sales consistently fails to meet sales targets, this is where it should be categorised. The situation here is often complex and the pressure to act is high.

As the categorisations clearly show, there is no quick, one-size-fits-all solution to these situations. A proactive, communicative and well-founded approach is required.

Handling

It is all too common for managers to quickly and publicly take brute force measures. Employees are increasingly seeing this kind of self-promoting leadership populism in the organisation. Such behaviour is neither effective nor helpful, and in many cases it is not aligning with the law.

Every person who is criticised has the right to be heard and to make their own statement before a judgement is made about their actions. If this does not happen, you are acting against the principles of democracy and the rule of law. In feedback and critique meetings, you can also point out appropriate consequences, which must always be dosed and proportionate. It goes without saying that a professionally structured and appropriately organised range of basic, advanced and further training courses in the required areas is a must.

Pointing out consequences is legitimate and a valid as well as reliable management tool, provided that equal treatment between employees is guaranteed. Please note that the burden of proof always lies with you as a manager. Judging or condemning people on the basis of hearsay, feelings or unsubstantiated opinions disqualifies you as a manager and causes your social legitimacy to disappear in record time.

Realisation

As a manager, you have a role model function. So far, so obvious. Unfortunately, it is usually in these cases that you are confronted with a lack of skills by managers themselves. If you demand respect but act disrespectfully yourself, nobody will give you any relevance as a leader. If you criticise sales people for not achieving their targets, but are not familiar with your own products, sales channels and sales processes, let alone being able to demonstrate sales skills yourself, your comments will be classified as an amusing but irrelevant issue. If you demand time management from people but appear to do the opposite yourself, you have no position from which to criticise. Many of the cases mentioned with regard to managers are classics that many people, including myself as the author, have experienced themselves in real-world practice.

Conclusion: master the tools to counter misbehaviour accordingly. Firstly, however, master your position as a role model, which is the basis for any form of criticism.

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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Apple Podcasts / Spotify
(Transcript below)

Is excellent leadership important to you?

Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com

Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.

Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.

Podcast Transcript

Niels Brabandt

We recently talked about how to handle mistakes by leaders. Of course, leaders make mistakes. And I received quite a number of emails from leaders who said, thank you very much, helpful, etcetera, etcetera. However, they said how to deal with errors from employees. So they often said, I don't really have a toolbox here. I just try whatever I think it's good. But is there any kind of scientific evidence, any kind of best practice here?

And, of course, there is. We want to have a handling of mistakes where a real learning effect takes place. So, very good here by the way. I didn't receive a single email that said, oh, you talk about leaders and their mistakes. Why why don't you talk about employees and they make more mistakes? Every single email I received came from leaders who said, look, I think I know how to deal with my errors or you helped me with it or I had professional training and coaching on that. But many of them admitted that they never received professional training on how to handle errors by their own team members. And, of course, errors errors happen.

We all know that. I I just give you a very simple because I don't want to get into a certain industry here because then the industry will say, well, there are other industries who are even worse. So let's keep it with sports because that's how especially in Germany. I received many emails from Germany here as well. We just recently had a massive thing that came up to press. It was Kevin Behrens who was for is a football player of soccer for our American listeners at Wolfsburg, a well known international team. And trigger warning, there will be an unacceptable statement in about 30 seconds time.

He, sat there during an autograph hour, so people wanted to sign their jersey. So people came there, please sign my jersey here, please sign this, please sign that. And one person showed up with a rainbow jersey of the club and then the player Kevin Bearden said, I'm not gonna sign that gay shit.

That's a word by word quotation. And of course the statement is wildly unacceptable how to deal with that. And that is just one aspect of how errors may happen first. And that is always step number 1. You have to find the right category of what kind of error are we talking about. The first kind of error is as the name says an error or a mistake. And these errors happen by coincidence.

I just give you an example. You have someone who works with a certain machine in your company and they're doing their job well. However, for whatever reason they suddenly press the wrong button and maybe a piece of metal gets bend in a way that it can't be repaired anymore and you have a certain damage you have to throw the whole material away. That is a typical case of an error. So errors happen they are often and that's important for the category. Errors happen by coincidence during during doing your work. In due course of your work by coincidence and error a mistake happens.

That's category number 1. Category number 2 is deficient or substandard performance. So when you for example say, hey you have this piece of metal, please fold them and please and on on on on every package here put 500 and then you control that and you see it's always somewhere in between 492 and 497. So it is it is 98% or 90 99% correct even, but it's always bit too less. And that is not only specific but it is objectively measurable. When you have something that happens more than just by coincidence and it's specific and objectively measurable then we talk about efficient or substandard performance. That's category number 2.

Category number 3 is what we call poor performance. And here you know that we use poor performance way too often where it is not only legally not correct but also in the situation not the right term to use. First you talk about errors and mistakes then you talk about the efficient and substandard performance especially when it's specific and objectively measurable. Only in the very final stage when it's a general and continuous poor performance. Then you use poor performance. So when it's general and continuously happening.

I'll give you an example. When someone works in your sales team they have a certain sales goal. Let's say they have a certain net revenue or net profit depending on how your industry wants to define that numbers or which kinds of gold you use in your company. However, generally and continuously they do not meet their goals. Then we talk about poor performance. So when it happens, let's say, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, or longer, we have a general and continuous poor performance. That's when we use the term poor performance.

Very very important here is do not use terms too quickly, and that is a common mistake. A common mistake is, as we see here by coincidence, when someone just does an error called an error or a mistake. Don't say you just delivered poor performance. As soon as you use these words too early, you have nothing left that you can say when something serious happens. So how to deal with that? 1st and step number 1 is you always invite people to talk about that. And you always talk about that because especially when you might think there might be an escalation or people have something else to say, people have a right to be heard.

People have a right to make a statement on the matter. And when you talk you give feedback and of course they say what they think. Also you of course say what the expectations are, you have set the expectations right, which, of course, you should have done in the 1st place, and then you offer support. If you want to go a bit further than that. Let's say you say, okay. We talked about that. However, I'm not really sure if that really worked.

I'm not really sure if the person got it. I'm not really sure if we if we really now, go in the right direction. You can still have, for example, agreements. So for example, target agreements, objective agreements, just management by objectives you probably know that term. You set certain goals which you write down and you both agree on them. Of course, and that is that goes without saying, you of course have to train coach people professionally. So they are able to have the right means to reach the goal.

So for example, when someone works wrong on a certain machine and it turns out they never were professionally trained on that machine and professional training means led by qualified professionals not some internal look at this thing. So when you never train people professionally, you shouldn't be surprised that when leaders never receive professional leadership training they are not great leaders. It's the same with anyone using a toolbox. When you never train people how to use the tools in a toolbox, they're probably not going to use them the right way. That is by the way the reason why you have intro sessions in the gym. There are many many videos out there where people use the machines in a gym in a very, let's say, special way but not the right one. So very important here is so first of course you go to goal arrangements, you put certain objectives in, then of course always think of professional training and coaching.

However, you also have the right to show consequences. So you say either when this happens again the consequences will be x y z or you immediately say hey that needs to have consequences. So for example when when Kevin Bearden said the unacceptable homophobic statement the employer made unambiguously clear that there will be consequences. And of course you might now say, well maybe it is so serious that I have to put a certain thing in more. And of course you can say, yes we need more. And one of them is the written warning. Warning letter which you put in writing that people know that was unacceptable or you simply fire them.

However, especially in European context and in different working laws in Europe, it is not that easy to just release people off their work or fire them. Very important here, how do you now implement all of that in real world practice? So first, the leader has to lead by example. I give you a very simple example. When you for example say, hey your kind of work in the office is chaotic, you need better time management. And then people say, look, every single meeting you are late, every single meeting you leave early, every single meeting you're not prepared, and when I have an appointment with you, you reschedule 3 times, and on the 4th time you're not prepared and we don't get anything done. So you have to lead by example.

When you criticize behavior with your employees while at the same time you do the offense by yourself, you have no credibility. So lead by example. If you have no position, you can't be the person criticizing it. So lead by example number 1. 2nd, the burden of proof is always with you. You can never say for example, I have the feeling and others say that as well but I can't name them. So by hearsay evidence I think you're less motivated than you were before.

I hear, I feel, I think. This is this is something you can do in a feedback talk when you wanna change certain behavior, which you personally do not like, which you have to label as such. However, when you wanna talk about delivering not the performance you expected from people, then you have to give them evidence. People have a right to evidence. When they simply say, I don't remember or I don't know or I don't think so, then that's fine with them. You, for example, can say, hey. You promised to give me 400,000 in net profit per quarter.

You achieved 330,000 and less for 3 quarters in a row. What can we do about that? That is evidence. You need to go by evidence. The burden of proof is always with you. And very important here talking about the burden of proof. When we talk about this utterly unacceptable homophobic statement, we have escapism at best in the common section on social media, including, by the way, on LinkedIn, leaders, business leaders who say, excuse me, when he wants to make that statement, it's freedom of speech. Yes. Of course, it's freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech, you have the right to have an opinion, and of course, you can have the opinion that in your opinion, a rainbow jersey is so gay that you do not wanna sign it for whatever reason. You can be homophobic. That is your right to your opinion. However, your employer has the right to the opinion to not employ you any further from there. So many people think that freedom of speech means freedom of repercussion or freedom of consequence. That is not the case. It's not a one way street.

So when we or you, please look in your organization as well, when you have anyone amongst your leaders who claim that freedom of speech says you can just shout out anything wildly unacceptable and face 0 consequences. These leaders are unsuitable for their position. No exception. You can make any statements you want as long as you don't defend the law because then authority step in. However, when you, for example, violate the values your employer stands for, your employer can say you do not work here any longer and put any consequence in place that happened here. And by the way, Kevin Behrends apologized one day after making the unacceptable homophobic remarks. So do I think that this is just an error or a mistake? No. Because error and mistakes are coincidental.

And when you say I'm not gonna I'm not gonna re re repeat the homophobic statement here. You can listen to it at the beginning of the podcast. However, when people make the statement that comes from somewhere, he didn't say that for the first time. I'm absolutely sure. And especially when you have that very specific statement in certain slang, there is there is strong evidence here that when you have linguistic patterns that linguistic patterns repeat. So what I think it is it is the efficient or substandard performance valuing the values that the employer stands for. And by the way no one no one forces you to stand for the employer your employer stands for.

When you say these are not my values, no problem, work somewhere else. Very important is you are not entitled to your employer's money when you do not value the values they stand for. So the this escapism of freedom of speech means you can say absolutely anything with zero consequence. No. You can't. You can say absolutely anything. However, anyone else can do so as well.

It's not a one way street. Final remarks here. When you now think, hey, I like to work with warning letters very quickly so people know where they stand. In my opinion, that's not a good idea. As soon as you put something in writing and say, here's a written warning letter, you become very formal. And as soon as you become very formal, they can become very formal as well. So for example, they can stick to their working hours by the minute, or they can read any employment law and interpret it by the letter, and then walk through your building and say, have to change this, have to change that.

And this law could be meant that way, so you have to implement that and that here and here. So be sure when you go formal, they can go formal as well. If you want to continue to work with someone, there's always a better way than a written warning letter. A written warning letter usually harms the relationship significantly and out of 20 years in real world leadership practice, once you put a written warning letter out there, in the vast majority of cases these people do not stay for longer. Maybe that was your goal, maybe you want to let them go, or maybe you want to fire them or get rid of them. However, in many cases when you need talent and you put a written warning letter out there due to some rule you you just set in your organization for whatever reason, People of course immediately think, do I want to work for this organization in the future and most likely they go out to job ads and look somewhere. And at the moment especially in today's times, it is it is quite quite obvious that it's not that hard to find a new job in today's times.

So be sure when you go formal they go formal. Of course, firing someone is the last option. Please always consult a legal professional with that especially in European context but also in other countries. You have very strong protective working laws. So be sure that you don't fire someone and suddenly they turn up 3 months later and you have to explain to your people why suddenly they couldn't be fired.

Taking this all together. Because when you wanna when you wanna go for how to sum this all up. Summing this all up when you communicate in the right way and sustainably, you don't have a guarantee that people don't make mistakes in the future. However, you significantly lower the probability that mistakes happen or they happen again. So anyone who communicates correctly and sustainably has no guarantees. However, you have a high probability that things will work better in the future and also even error even if mistakes and errors happen, people will learn from it and be better employees, better team members afterwards. And I wish you all the best doing so.

And of course, you might now say, well, that's quite a lot. And I know it is. When, you know, this this episode happened due to emails that people sent me. They were interested in the topic. So when you have something which you like to discuss either in private with me via email or have a phone call or when you say, hey. Could you please talk about this topic? Just send me an email. Nbnb networks. com. I put the email address in the show notes of this podcast.

By the way, when you wanna have something very specific, which we also had in recent weeks, training session, speaking speaking at your conference or coaching or or whatever else, feel free to contact me as well via email or any other means. I put the email address in the show notes of this podcast. My LinkedIn also is in the show notes of this podcast and you also see my website nbhyphen networks. biz. By the way, thank you very much for the input. We also now put all the articles on my website and also all the transcript. So when you want to have the podcast in writing you have the whole transcript right there.

I'm looking forward to being in contact with you and then we can exchange ideas in the future. 2nd aspect which I always recommend when people say do you have live sessions? Yes, we do. We just had one 2 weeks ago and we usually have roughly 1 per month. The next one, you can see when you go to expert. Nbhyphennetworks. com. When you put your email address in there, you only receive one email every Wednesday morning.

And in this email, you receive free access to everything I publish. So for example, when you say, hey. My leader prefers articles of a podcast. You find all the articles there. But also, you find the direct link to go to the live session. There is no additional registration necessary. So feel free to sign up here.

It's a it's a 100% content, ad free guarantee. So I'm looking forward to being in contact with you there. And the last aspect is the most important one. Apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive change that you obviously want to see in your organization. I wish you all the best doing so. I'm available for help 247. Feel free to contact me anytime.

And at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.