Tactics for Difficult Situations
There's not a one-size-fits all approach to all situations. And every manager is going to have their own style of handling tough situations. In general, these are some helpful tactics to consider:
Work Is Turned in Late or It's Sloppy
First, you need to understand if the lateness is coming from being overworked, too much perfectionism, or if there's something else going on. Each situation needs a different approach.
Situation: They're turning in work late because they overcommitted.
Approach: If someone overcommitted, take a look at the workload together. Can anything be taken off and delegated to someone else? Do any of their stretch projects need to be taken off? Can you take meetings off their plate and sit in for them? Also consider re-prioritization. Are their tasks truly in order of priority? Take a hard look and make adjustments if necessary.
Situation: The work seems unusually unfocused.
Approach: There tends to be two reasons why something seems unfocused: either it was rushed, or they couldn't picture the intended audience. If it's the latter, consider doing a customer persona exercise. This is where you take data about your customer and build a person in your mind that you're marketing/writing/selling to.
Situation: Work is turned in late due to perfectionism.
Approach: Remind them of the bigger picture. When they're late, it causes every other team after them to rush to get the product to the audience. You might also want to look at deadlines together and make sure they're agreed upon.
Situation: Work is late or sloppy due to laziness.
Approach: The best you can do is point out the impact of bad work on the team, as it makes the whole team look bad. Lazy work also hurts your direct report's professional reputation. If things really don't improve, start documenting instances and talk with your own manager. At some point, there won't be someone who has time to clean up the person's mess and the lack of quality is going to hurt the business
Your Direct Report’s Performance Isn’t Great: Skill vs. Will
If you feel like your direct report’s performance is either below standard or is slipping, you need to ask yourself if this is a “skill” or a “will” situation.
Situation: There’s a reorg and your direct report doesn’t seem to know how to do job as well as their peers. There’s a good chance they just weren’t trained properly. Ex. A writer might have only been doing journalistic work on one account, but now they’re on a new team writing SEO content, and they don’t have a grasp on keywords, interlinks, and other SEO best practices.
Approach: Teach them. Figure out a game plan. Maybe it’s creating a 101 guide and walking them through it, or having coaching sessions once a week, or having frequent feedback sessions in the beginning, or having their peers coach them on best practices, or getting them certificated in the skill, ect.
Note: There is going to be a tipping point. If you feel like you’ve provided a ton of teaching and the skills are not sinking in, you need to ask yourself if this is working. Eventually, it’s not going to be fair as a manager to constantly check someone’s work, and it’s not fair for a team to have a teammate they can’t rely on. There’s no magic moment for that tipping point, but maybe think of the corporate 30 days, 60 days, 90 days timeframe for when to check in.
Situation: You have a direct report who has turned in awesome work and a great work performance in the past, but now it’s slipping. Ex. Someone keeps turning in work late, then will get back on track, then turn in work late again, and there’s a real inconsistency with their reliability.
Approach: Talk with them. Point out that their performance is impacting their team. Often, just having the awareness is enough. If it’s not enough, let them know that their professional reputation is being tarnished by their behavior. Most people don’t want to be seen as unreliable.
Note: There’s also a tipping point with this as well. There’s not a magic number for how many times you need to remind them to shape up. But after the second time, a third time really should be in print, with documented dates of when you’ve previously had this conversation and what the expectations are.
Your Direct Report is Feeling Anxious or Overwhelmed
Situation: Your direct report is feeling overwhelmed by their workload and other demands.
Approach: Build a priority list together for the week. It might feel like there's horizontal importance for each and every project, but that's not usually true. Break things down in order of priority. You can also ask them to skip some meetings (sit in for them) or see if there's anything that can get taken off their plate.
Situation: Your direct report is feeling anxious around lack of clarity of what's coming in the future.
Approach: If you don't have full information yet, share what you can and be honest that you have incomplete information. Provide frequent updates, even if it's minor. Once you have a clearer picture, provide a clear and detailed game plan – preferably in written form – around team priorities, timelines, and each person's role.
Your Team is Feeling Scared Post-Layoffs
Situation: They're nervous they'll get laid if there's another round of layoffs.
Approach: Layoffs suck. No other way to put it. It's jarring and demoralizing. You're not able to promise that more layoffs aren't coming. But what you can do is have them focus three things for themselves 1.) Do great work that you're proud of. 2.) Remember that your professional reputation follows you everywhere, so handle this time with grace. 3.) Lean into professional development so you feel like at least you're adding to your skill toolbox if something happens.
Your Direct Report Doesn't Believe in the Work Itself
Situation: They don't believe in the work they do.
Approach: This is tricky. And it's going to come up a lot with super creative people who would probably thrive in the arts and advocacy – but ended up in corporate America instead. The best you can do is help them find an element of the work they can believe in. For example, maybe the maid service your team is promoting isn't eco-friendly and that really bothers one of your direct reports. But, based on data, a large portion of maid service is used by elderly customers who can't physically clean their homes anymore. Reframe the work as: Helping people who can no longer help themselves is valuable. That said, this is one of those situations where the direct report needs to either make peace with themselves about their work or make the call to find something else.
World Events Are Extra Loud
Situation: Something largely upsetting happened in the news. This might include a natural disaster, a mass shooting near the direct report's location, or political news that the direct report has a vested interest in.
Approach: Check in with them. Ask how they're doing or your team as a whole are doing. If it's particularly upsetting and they're not going to be able to concentrate, let them log off early. For instance, if your direct report is a parent with young kids and there's a mass school shooting, it's best to check in on them and let them out early if they're not ok.
Your direct report is experiencing grief
Situation: Your direct report has just experienced a big death in their life.
Approach: Grief is not a straight line. And there’s not a clear path of how to support and comfort someone either. Some people don’t want any attention whatsoever, while others need that extra love during this tough time. As a manager, you’re going to have to feel this one out of how to best approach your direct report. In general, these are some good things to do:
Address the situation head-on. Whether it’s an email or Slack message, send something right away expressing your condolences. Say the same thing when you have your first 1:1. If they want to talk about it, they will. And if they would prefer to stick to talking about the work, be understanding and keep conversation about the work.
If you feel like the situation is appropriate, send a handwritten to their home. [This is one reason you’ll want to get everyone’s address when they first start on the team]. Be sure to write something from the heart. It’s ok if you don’t know what to say. Sometimes that’s exactly what to say. Because when it comes to grief, there’s never the right thing to say when something hurts like this. All you can do is wish a lot of comfort and peace during this difficult time.
If you feel like the situation is appropriate, send flowers to their home on behalf of the team.
Be mindful of their workload. Try to ease off assignments during this initial period of grief.