As a people manager and coach for the past 20 years, this phrase (“in all honesty”) is one of the most commonly used in the workplace. When heard from a poor performing employee when questioning their behaviour, it can reinforce your suspicions when deciding whether to performance management them or not. That doesn’t mean everyone I’ve met is immediately in the firing line just for this turn of phrase! For many fine people, this is simply a default conversational marker such as “umm” or the excruciating “like” if you are a millennial.
The other similar well- worn phrase is “I can honestly say”. What does that mean exactly? Have we now established that everything you’ve said prior to this was a lie?
I’m a very trusting boss and believe in giving my people the time and space to do what they get paid to do. I’ve probably learned more from my bad bosses and coaches over the years in how NOT to do things. I hated being micro-managed but when performance management rears its ugly head then it’s time for the “chat”.
The performance management discussion is one of the toughest conversations you can have as a manager particularly if you’ve established a long and trusting relationship. Honesty and trust is everything so if you are having one of these discussions I’ve had a structure for many years that keeps me on track and removes the bulk of the emotion.
Of all the management courses, external study, and myriad of acronyms I’ve gleaned over the years, this one has stood the test of time for me personally. AID, Action, Impact, Desired outcome.
ACTION – The “what”, the behaviours and/or actions that have occurred. It’s critical that any actions the employee took were OBSERVED BY YOU and YOUR EVIDENCE IS FACT BASED. If you’re not authentic and accurate, expect a challenge from the employee and possible fireworks. Conversation over!
IMPACT – The “how”, the outcome of those actions, what effect the actions have had on the business/team. This is your opportunity to drive home the impact that this person has had and often you will see people of good character change their body language at the completion of this being read to them. A sense of resignation and acknowledgement is a good sign. Conversely, a defensive stance means there’s more work to come!
DESIRED OUTCOME – Expectations going forward and how to achieve them, changes that will be happening. It’s important that the employee is very clear on expectations particularly if they have told you of something they weren’t aware of during the meeting.
Every business has their own unique ways of managing performance. AID is ideally a coaching tool for preliminary performance management discussions. It doesn’t set out a corrective action plan or the like, but more so is used as a proactive measure, to hopefully avoid going down that path.
The severity of the actions will determine how much the employee is engaged in the conversation by the manager. Whether it’s a precursor to performance management or an informal chat with a respected team member who may have simply lost their way on the journey, the AID structure allows you to write down what you want to say and remove emotion if you are feeling a little nervous. Most importantly your employee will respect you for taking the time to prepare for what needs to be “in all honesty” an open and transparent conversation.
