“situation crafting” to turn around a failing employee relationship

Helping managers learn how to flip their thinking from “fire” to “grow” is an integral part of my coaching. One great coaching technique (championed by Geoffrey Cohen in his book Belonging) is called “situation crafting.” All too often, we use vagueness to preserve obstacles in our path. This is simple human nature, but it can be overcome. In a situation-crafting exercise, I ask a series of increasingly specific questions to break down obstacles into ever smaller and more concrete pieces. Ultimately we arrive at a future where “impossible” has been removed as an option.

What does this look like in action? When I start working with a client who has a struggling employee, one of the interactions we have typically goes something like this:

“How long until you fire this employee?” I’ll often start with. 

“Three to six months,” is the most common response.

“So regardless of their performance, they’re going to be here, contributing at this company for the next quarter- to half-year, correct?” I’ll ask. This elicits—without fail—a defeated-sounding, “Yes.”

At this point I help my clients transform the upcoming three to six months from a phase to endure to a genuine opportunity to turn things around. “Do you really want them screwing up for that long?” I’ll ask. “Wouldn’t it be better if you were able to extract more value out of their work? Wouldn’t teaching them to be more productive support a tremendous savings of your own time and money as well?” This set of questions almost always resets the room with the tone of inspiration and builds to a conversation about creating a new relationship with that employee from the ground up.

-ben