People say you should keep business and personal separate. With the events of the last two years (pandemic), and people working from home, that becomes nearly impossible. It presents its own challenges, but has some advantages, too.
I was coaching a new sales director who wanted to improve the performance of a member on his team. I asked him if he leveraged the fact that Emotions drive behavior which drives performance. He said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get all that. I stay positive when I coach. I’ve talked to Jim over and over again about this, nothing seems to stick. This is the second month he missed quota.” I asked him what his approach was in coaching Jim. He said, “I told him he needed to hit his quota, I even gave him a couple suggestions. Nada, no change.”
I probed and said, “Have you tried asking…” He interrupted me, “Oh yeah, I told him he needed to hit his quota and I asked him what he thought he could do. That didn’t seem to work either. He just said he would try harder.” I inquired if there was anything going on in Jim’s personal life that would distract his focus. His response: “I don’t delve into personal lives of my employees. That’s their business.” This sparked a discussion around the difference between showing care and concern versus prying into one’s personal life. Until that conversation, the nuance had escaped my client.
Once you feel you are mentally solid, shift your focus to your employees. How are they feeling about returning to the office? What concerns do they have? The more you can ‘meet them where they are’ the better your RTW program will go. Here are some things you can do.
Fast forward two weeks, during our next coaching conversation, and my client shared that he had taken a different approach. He met with Jim and reminded him of the missed quota, but then asked him if everything was okay in his world. After some reluctance, Jim shared his daughter was battling cancer and he was very distracted. He had not said anything before because he knew his boss’ view on keeping work and personal separate.
This was a wakeup call my for my client in two ways. First, he realized he needed to relax his view on keeping business and personal separate. His employees were, in fact, human beings who can’t separate their lives from who they bring to the job. Second, he needed to incorporate empathy into his coaching. Meeting his team where they were would increase their feeling of being valued and, therefore, their productivity.
He began choosing to focus more on his team as people than just employees. Last I heard, Jim had beat his quota three months in a row.
Thanks for reading. And remember, it’s your choice. Make it count.