From the manager’s perspective, the crucial confrontation centers around the gap between the performance you’re getting and what you are expecting.  From the employee’s perspective, the discussion may trigger feelings of intimidation, fear, anger or disrespect.  In order to get the discussion off to the right start so you can address the gap, the authors offer three guidelines for the discussion:

Maintain Safety – Describe what you observed and what you expected in clear and simple terms.

Maintain Mutual Respect – No sarcasm, editorial comments or judgments

Maintain Mutual Purpose – Let the other person know that your goal is to solve the problem and make things better for both of you.

Contrasting is a technique used to maintain safety and respect in cases where an individual may feel offended or defensive at the start of the conversation.  Contrasting addresses the employee’s fears and misunderstanding, i.e.,- does the boss think I’m incompetent, lazy, a bad person?

An example of contrasting: 
”I don’t want you to think I’m unhappy with the quality of your work.  It’s excellent and I’m satisfied.  I do want to talk about ways that I think you could do the work more efficiently and still maintain the quality.”  

*“Crucial Confrontations” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler.  2005.  Published by McGraw-Hill.

Copyright 2006, Applied Performance Strategies, Inc.

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