1. Give evidence of performance to employee.

In litigation, prosecutors are required to turn all

of their evidence over to the defense. In order to be

fair to employees, supervisors need to do the same

thing. Tony frequently received disturbing memos from

his district manager about his poor performance on

sales calls. "You failed to cover the Five Points for Sales

Excellence with a customer last month. This is

unacceptable." Tony never received a monitoring sheet

spelling out the discrepancies, never heard a tape of a

recorded call, and he didn't even have the opportunity

to defend himself because the cowardly manager simply

shot her message off in a cold blunt memo.

Giving feedback the way Tony's district manager does

is dangerous. It certainly isn't motivating Tony to

improve.

Moreover, because the manager has provided no proof

of the calls - no score sheet, no recording of the call,

no date or time, and not even one specific statement

about Tony's alleged ineffectiveness - Tony can't even

defend his performance.

When monitoring and coaching employees, ALWAYS

turn over the evidence of the call to them. This

evidence may include a recorded call, Mystery Shopper

score sheet, detailed notes from customer's account,

etc.

2. Prepare for employee performance meetings in

advance. No attorney would conduct a direct

examination or cross examination without thoroughly

and carefully pre planning their questions. I always

prepare a loose script prior to meeting with employees

about problem performance, even though I don't

actually read from my script. Writing the discussion out

reinforces it in my mind and allows me to be less

concerned with covering all the basis and more

concerned with my employee.

3. Ask open-ended questions. Asking a juror

if they are for the death penalty yields a yes or no

answer, but asking her how she feels about the death

penalty gives the attorney the opportunity to learn

more. Just the same, asking your employee if she

thought the phone call in question was good will yield a

yes or no answer, but asking her how she thought the

call went gives her the opportunity to expound. My

favorite open-ended coaching questions include: "If

you could do this call over again, would you?" "Tell me

about that caller." "Is there anything else about this

call/customer that I haven't asked, but need to know?"

4. Don't allow the "Twinkie Defense." In

court, defendants may stand behind a theory of the

case called the "Twinkie Defense." This theory tries to

throw the jury off the trail by blaming the client's bad

actions on something else - he ate too many Twinkies,

for instance, and was on a sugar high when he

killed/robbed/raped/molested and therefore is not

responsible for his actions. You may have encountered

the Twinkie Defense with your employees: "I was late

because traffic was unusually heavy and then when I

got here the elevator was broken, therefore my

tardiness is not my fault." Decide that employees will

be held accountable for their actions and don't allow

them to hide behind the Twinkie Defense. In response

to the Twinkie Defense, you respond with, "This is

about individual responsibility - not trying to hide

behind excuses."

Deploy these field-tested and proven strategies and

you'll be coaching employees like a pro!