Mark thought long and hard before he responded. “But, bringing up her underperformance in front of everyone else is not my style.”
“You’re not talking about her underperformance in public OR private,” I said.
“You’re right, I should talk to her in private,” Mark shrugged.
“I didn’t say either way, but why are you so uncomfortable bringing up performance issues in the executive management team?”
“Well, you know, it would be uncomfortable,” Mark admitted.
“Of course, it would be uncomfortable. Do you convene your executive team to talk about comfortable issues? If there is no contention, no conflict, no active discussion, what would be the point?”
“We are just not used to that. I would like to think we treat each other with respect.”
“You can be respectful and still hold someone to account for their performance,” I insisted. “The reason you are not used to talking about performance, with respect, is that you don’t practice it.”
Love that last line. Feedback is an *organizational* skill, not just a personal one.
“Timely!” Urania nodded her agreement. “We need to practice if we want to improve.”
“But, but, but…” Calliope stammered, “… I’m afraid.”
“We’re all afraid of saying too much, or not enough. Not saying at all keeps us stuck.” Tal punched at an imaginary bag. “Let’s steep in ‘how we might approach with love instead of fear’ for a while? I’m confident a way forward will appear.”