How to Manage Emotions in Performance Management Conversations

In today's episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast with host Simon Goode, we dive into the crucial topic of managing emotions during performance management meetings. Simon, a seasoned professional mediator, addresses the challenges often faced in these meetings, especially when conflict escalates. He explores various de-escalation strategies tailored for performance management conversations by focusing on five key aspects: certainty, relatedness, autonomy, status, and fairness. Simon also discusses the importance of balancing assertiveness with empathy, offering step-by-step insights into how to maintain composure through both verbal and nonverbal communication. Whether you're aiming to foster collaboration or need to take a more direct approach, Simon's guidance in this episode provides valuable tools to help navigate performance-related discussions effectively. Tune in to learn how to keep these crucial conversations more productive and less contentious.

--------------------

EPISODE SUMMARY: 

1. Understanding Performance Management Conflicts
   • Performance management processes as potentially adversarial.
   • Natural combativeness and defensive responses.
   • Approach to de-escalation in performance management settings.
   • Balancing assertiveness and empathy.
2. De-escalation Skills and Their Application
   • Overview of five aspects: certainty, relatedness, autonomy, status, and fairness.
   • Individual context-based approach to either assertiveness or empathy.
   • Five options for responding to conflict: competing, compromising, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating.
3. De-escalation Strategy: Certainty
   • Providing certainty through information about what to expect.
   • Discussing behavior, consequences, and facts.
   • Transparency and specificity in addressing issues.
4. De-escalation Strategy: Relatedness
   • Demonstrating understanding and empathy.
   • Allowing questions and pausing to slow the pace.
   • Addressing emotions and processing time.
5. De-escalation Strategy: Autonomy
   • Giving a sense of control over the meeting and issue.
   • Offering choices and soliciting input on problem-solving.
6. De-escalation Strategy: Status
   • Making the person feel important.
   • Acknowledging contributions and separating issue from personal attributes.
7. De-escalation Strategy: Fairness
   • Allowing responses and questions.
   • Implementing transparent processes and outlining change expectations.
8. Nonverbal Aspects of De-escalation
   • Voice tone, volume, and pace adjustments.
   • Facial expression and body language considerations.
   • Maintaining a composed presence to influence meeting dynamics.

website: simongoode.com
email: podcast@simongoode.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview
• 0:53 The Nature of Performance Management Conflicts
• 2:13 De-escalation Skills: Assertion vs. Empathy
• 4:52 Five Aspects of De-escalation
• 9:25 Certainty
• 13:20 Relatedness
• 16:43 Autonomy
• 19:58 Status
• 23:02 Fairness
• 27:12 Nonverbal Communication
• 32:20 Conclusion and Contact Information

Transcript

0:03

How would you like to learn to manage the waves of strong emotions that come about when you're having performance management meetings with one of your staff? That's the topic that I'm going to be talking about in the podcast episode today. Hello, and welcome. If you don't know me, my name is Simon Goode, and I'm a professional mediator and host of the Conflict Skills podcast. I do a lot of workplace mediations, and to be honest, I think sometimes when the mediation doesn't go well, like, the participants don't get to an agreement, what might happen next is that one or, occasionally, it might even be both of the staff members ended up leaving the organization. So I think sometimes it is actually kind of like trying to resolve conflict during a performance management process that's going on. And for me, those kind of mediations are incredibly challenging because the people that are involved are already naturally very combative. That performance management process often feels quite adversarial. Someone might feel like they are the victim, and so, of course, that tends to trigger defensive kinds of responses from them. And And so what I'm going to be talking about in the podcast episode today is what are some of the touch points, the things that tend to push people's buttons, and what are some of the different strategies that we can use to deescalate those strong emotions as we go. Now I've talked about deescalation skills in previous episodes of the podcast, and I talked about some particular strategies that we can work when the conversation is specifically focused on deescalation, like you're dealing with a client and they're very worked up or a staff member comes to you and they're angry and upset about something, and your goal of that conversation is to calm them down. Now I don't know that that is necessarily the goal at every moment of every performance management conversation that you're in. So the first thing that you'll need to do is effectively to decide how assertive do you want to be versus how supportive and empathetic. And like some of the strategies that I'm talking about, they're effective at helping the other person to feel heard, which might create a sense of engagement and buy in, for example. But you might be at the point with your interactions with this staff member that this is the last chance. So in that case, your messaging might be much more direct. If this happens again, this is what the consequence is gonna be. You know, this is your last chance to do this. Otherwise, we're going to let you go. So when I'm talking about de escalation skills training, I talk about five particular aspects, certainty, relatedness, autonomy, status, and fairness. Now during those conversations where our goal is specific to escalation, those are often the elements that it tends to be quite helpful to focus on. So I'm going to explain some of the different options that we can use for incorporating those same principles when we're having a performance management conversation with the staff member. So for me, I I do think about that decision of how assertive to be versus how empathetic and supportive. To be frank, I think my natural approach tends to be probably more empathetic and supportive than others. The downside to that is that I might feel like I've been a bit of a doormat or somebody else might see me as being a bit of a doormat. Like, I tend to be naturally reasonably accommodating. So during a meeting, if somebody can't help but interrupt me, to be frank, I'd probably just let them talk and do it a couple of times before I decide to stand my ground. But that's not always the case. And so for you, you'll need to decide based on your context and the person that you're dealing with whether or not it's worth being just assertive. We've got those five options that we can choose from for responding to conflict. We've got the competing purely assertive kind of approach. We've got compromising, meet in the middle. We've got accommodating, just let them have their way and give in or, you know, effectively say yes to what they're asking for. With the fourth option is we could avoid conflict. And then the fifth option is collaborating. So even if this is something that's very important to you and you've decided that you're not going to budge, like, this is something that's not negotiable, there's no flexibility here, you've still got those two options of either competing, which is where you just talk about what's important to you and the strategies that you take will be just focused on that, making sure that you're not letting them get away with what they're doing, etcetera. Or you could look at collaborating, which would be inviting them into a problem solving type of conversation around the issue itself. So if you decide to go down that route, to me, I think the de escalation strategies that we can use are particularly helpful because it calms the other person down and it opens up the door for the kind of buy in and engagement that you're looking for if you wanna talk to someone about actually solving this problem. Let's put our head together and do some brainstorming about what options might work. Whereas if I decide just to be assertive, like take the competing approach, I might not care as much about deescalating them, if you know what I mean. The fact that they get upset and, like, there's a part of me obviously that doesn't like to upset people, but especially if they've done the wrong thing and all I'm doing is being transparent about it, that might be okay. I might, at least in myself, be okay with being much more direct if that makes sense. So the first of these possible options in the situations where you do want to deescalate the conversation is providing certainty. Now what I'm talking about there is letting the other person know what's happened and what to expect. In other words, we give them the facts. We give them the information. If you're not, going to fire them today, let them know that upfront. You know, I just wanna let you know that that we're not gonna let you go. I did wanna talk to you about some aspects of your performance, though. We want to focus on the behavior, what they've actually done, and talking about the consequences or the problem that it's caused. This is the data conflict side of things where we just talk about the facts. We want to make sure that we're starting from the same foundation of a common understanding of what the heck we're discussing here. So we wanna talk about what they've done specifically. I wouldn't say you're always late or you're not taking this job seriously or you're not pulling your weight around here. Of course, these kind of labels just trigger resistance and defensiveness because the person feels like we're accusing them of something and literally we are. Whereas if we say this is the third time that you've been late this week, it's a very factual description and there's less that they might be able to argue against. And actually, in some situations, they might not be aware of the fact that this is a pattern of behavior that you have noticed. You might also talk about what you want them to change. Could you be more on time? Could you let me know when you're more than five minutes late? And you could consider outlining the consequences if things do change or if they don't. So if it happens again, this is your final chance. I just wanna be clear and upfront and transparent with you. Or maybe it's, we will need to consider a formal performance management process if you're at those very early stages, and this is kind of the last informal warning. But you could decide how much of that information you decide to make explicit. So it's the things to do with the issue itself, like what happens if their behavior doesn't change, but it's also things to do with the conversation. Providing certainty around that can be helpful too. Like, are there other people joining you? What can they do to prepare? How long is the meeting going for? What are the topics that you wanted to talk about? Are there three things? Maybe letting them know that upfront. Are they going to have a chance to reply? Are they going to have a chance to ask any questions? Can they ask to have a break? Like, giving all of this information upfront. The nest egg the next aspect I should say that we could consider is what's called relatedness. Now what we're doing here is demonstrating a sense of understanding. We get what it might be like for you. Now we can do that based on what they're saying and empathize. This sounds like it's actually come as quite a shock or, I take it from some of the comments that you've made that you might have a sense that we're overreacting here. Like, I might summarize what they've told me explicitly or I might do what I call preemptive empathy. You know, I imagine this probably comes as quite a shock. Even though they haven't told me that they're in shock, I'm, you know, hypothesizing about what might be going on for them. You might feel like we're making a mountain out of a molehill here. You're probably wondering why you've been singled out, this kind of thing. The next thing that we can do to help with relatedness is allowing them to ask questions Very frequently during these kind of performance management conversations, it can be helpful to pause and say, is there anything that's not clear? Is there anything that you wanted to ask me about any of that before we move on? Is there any additional information that would be helpful just thinking about that topic that we're discussing at the moment? I'm slowing things down. That's helpful as well because it provides autonomy, which is the nest next aspect that I'm going to be talking about. But it does let them get that information that they're looking for. So that's practically helpful. But even the sense of, like, do you have any questions? I imagine that there's probably some thoughts that are percolating away in your head at the moment. Like, we're acknowledging this is what's happening for them, and it creates a real sense of connection. We want to give them time to process acknowledging the emotions that come up in particular and attending to those five aspects of their self. Like, if they're twitching and they can't sit still, maybe saying, would it be helpful if we go for a quick walk or I'd be happy to discuss it while we go for a walk and get a coffee, if that's helpful, or giving them the option of taking a quick break or something like that if they maybe they need to talk to the bathroom all of a sudden or something like that. Or they're worried that they're going to cry and so they've got that big welling up of emotion. So taking a little bit of a break might be something that's helpful for them. Or maybe they're focusing on only one particular aspect of what you've said. That's not true. That didn't happen at the last Christmas party. And so we could then shift the focus away from just the thoughts to, sure. And how does that sit with you? Like, what's it like to be accused of that given the fact that you at least feel like they've got it all completely backwards? The third aspect that we could incorporate is what's called autonomy. This is where we want to give the person a sense of being in control. And this could be, again, connected to the issue itself, like what is the performance management conversation about, what's their behavior that's a problem, Or it could be about the meeting like, would you like a moment to grab a drink before we get started? Even very simple questions like that, what I'm doing is putting the person that I'm speaking with in the driver's seat. They get to decide when they're ready and effectively say go, which means that they don't have that same spike of cortisol and stress once I begin. Alright. Thanks for going. I wanted to talk to you about this and blah blah blah blah blah and it's five minutes before they get to say anything. Of course, that doesn't give them any sense of control and therefore, it's this fight or flight kind of response that's very likely building up for them even at a subconscious level. So I want to let them make decisions about the conversation. Which topic should we start with? Would would you like to ask any questions? Would you like to respond to that before we move on to the next point? And I also wanna give them autonomy about the issue. Like, look. That's my perspective, and that's what I've noticed. But what do you think would help? Are there other factors that you think have been contributing, and what kind of options do you think might benefit the team moving forward? So, again, I'm giving them this sense of ownership. This is like, we are going to solve this problem together. And if you're focusing on that collaborative strategy, it's not just competing. I don't just wanna tell them what they've done wrong. I want to invite them in to solve the problem and think about what's gonna help. Giving them autonomy is a really nice way of introducing, I think, a very natural sense of responsibility that often comes along with this as well. The fourth aspect that we could include is what's called status. These are the things that we can do to make the person feel important. So setting aside time, having a meeting earlier on in the day, having a senior person there, bringing in some food, offering them a coffee. These little things that we can do, it's sort of showing the person that you matter and you care. Giving them a chance to have a say, acknowledging the input that they've had to the team or the work that you're doing, acknowledging the fact that you're not having a performance management meeting because of their technical problems. You know, they've they're very skilled at their job. The thing that you wanted to talk to them about was communication with their colleagues or sending their finance reports back to the accounts team at the end of every month more with more detail in it that's needed or something like that. Like, we're wanting to say effectively, I don't think you're an idiot, and I don't think that you're a jerk because we're having this conversation. There are specific aspects of your behavior, and I have confidence that you can change them. I know that it's not just to do with you and there's other factors that are contributing, but I wanted to be transparent and talk to you about the issues to your face and give you a chance to have a reply and have your say as well and ask any questions or clarify anything that's needed because what I'm hoping for is that we're on the same page moving forward. So I'm trying to send this message that you matter, that the issue matters, that I'm taking your side of it seriously, and that this isn't going away. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm putting the issue on the table in a way that says, this is something that we're going to need to deal with. You're important. Therefore, this issue is something that we need to discuss. And then the final aspect that we could include is what's called fairness. This could be very simple things like allowing them a response, allowing them to ask any questions, having some kind of a system where if a complaint's made against one person that, you know, you do some kind of a impartial investigation and allow them some type of a right of reply. Maybe there's a complaint process or there's options that they can use to, indicate that they are unhappy about the performance management meeting process so you could let them know about those options. They can ask to talk to a different manager if they're not comfortable with you, for example, if that's an option that they have. Let them know whether or not other senior people know. Let them know what they can do to change, and let them know what you're looking for in terms of success. So one of the ways that we can let someone know about fairness during a performance management conversation is letting them know the limits of what we're going to do. Like, I'm not talking to other members of the team about this, or I just want you to know that this isn't a situation where we're all piling on, and we're looking for opportunities to catch you out doing something wrong. That's not the case. And from a very genuine position, we want to do everything that we can to support you. The challenge is that if these behaviors don't change, we're not going to be left with any other option but to, you know, dot dot dot, whatever the thing is that you're going to need to do, which ultimately might be let them go. So certainty, relatedness, autonomy, status, and fairness, those tend to be the ways that I think about deescalating those strong emotions, at least in terms of the topics during performance management conversations. And then we would also want to attend to the nonverbal aspects as well. How we speak, how we sit or stand, facial expression, body language, all of those kind of things too. So for voice, we want to use a low steady tone, a volume that's loud enough for the person to be able to hear, but lowering your volume, especially if there's a spike of strong emotions that would often be helpful, and speaking a little bit slower than you might normally speak. Again, especially when things get heated. So that low steady tone, lower volume, slower speed, really simplifying your speech, don't use technical jargon, don't speak for too long without allowing the other person to have a say, and allow some silences. Silence can be incredibly helpful for allowing somebody to have a chance to reflect and consider what you've actually just told them. And then in terms of facial expression and body language, etcetera, we want to remove the sense of perceived threat. So we don't want to use a lot of hand gestures and be rapidly moving around the room or tapping a pen on the desk or something like that. Of course, that's going to inject additional energy and tends to ramp up that sense of being frazzled in a bit of a frenetic kind of a vibe in the room. We want to just slow down. Think about the king in a play. Just be upright and relatively still. Put your shoulders down and back. Open your chest out. Raise your chin slightly. Just sort of put your hands together on the table, clasp your hands together in a relaxed kind of way, and look at the other person. Show them that you're faced and engaged and listening to them, but you're not wanting to move towards or away from them. You don't wanna be pointing in their face or leaning right in when you're speaking. Just be relatively still. You're trying to almost channel an image of being composed. You're not flustered. You're not flapped. You can get through this. And as you begin to project that kind of a vibe, so to speak, an energy, a a nonverbal communication set of cues that you're sending, the other person will pick up on that. And so once we combine those verbal with the nonverbal aspects of the de escalation, you might, is my hope, find that the performance management conversations that you're having tend to not go as pear shaped as often or when they do go as pear shaped, maybe it's not quite as ugly and messy for everybody involved. But I hope that that's been helpful for you. But what do you think? I'd love to hear some feedback. The best way to get in touch is send me an email. The email address is podcast@simongood.com, and my website is sim0ng,doubleo,de.com. I've just been tweaking it and putting up a little bit more information about my training workshops and the mediation program that I offer and that kind of thing. So if you'd like to engage me and you think I might be able to help working with your team, please feel free to get in touch as well. I can shoot you through some options. But, otherwise, thank you very much for listening. I'm very grateful. If it's been useful and you'd be prepared to leave a positive review, you know, I'd be overjoyed. So thank you so much in advance if that's something that you're prepared to do. But, otherwise, hopefully, see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills podcast. Bye for now.