Ok, let’s get this out of the way … this is not *really* a show about how to fire people. Rather, today we discuss how to take a poor performer and turn them into a good performer. And when, despite your best efforts, you are not successful in helping the person turn around, how to be in a position where you can fire the person. You may not feel good about it (that’s ok, you shouldn’t!), but you will be confident in your decision and be able to put your head down on your pillow and sleep at night.

There are six steps:

1. Feedback
2. Systemic Feedback
3. One on One Performance Discussion
4. Coaching
5. Formal Performane Discussion and Notification
6. Coaching Within Your Corporate Process

We’ll review these steps at a high-level today, and come back to them with more detail and some examples over the next couple of podcasts.

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Last week, we covered at a high-level the Late Stage Coaching model, or the process you go through when having to fire someone. As we noted then, and we’ll say again now, this process isn’t really a “how to fire someone”, but rather, how to develop someone. In most cases, if you follow this model, you NEVER get to the step where you have to fire someone. Now, isn’t that an experience we’d all like to avoid?

This week, we review the model in a bit more detail, with some detailed examples to better illustrate the process. The entire review was a bit long, so we broke it into 2 parts, the first of which we’ll cover today. We’ll follow-on with the second part next week.

Warning: For some of you, this show may sound repetitive. To some degree, it is. If you fully understand the model AND have implemented it, we beg your forgiveness. If you haven’t, however, listen on …

As we discuss at the end of the podcast, we’ve noted that although many of our listeners really would like to engage in more meaningful discussions on management topics, the blog doesn’t lend itself too well to the task. We’ve attempted to improve the situation by implementing discussion forums on our website. You can find the discussion forums here. We’d very much appreciate it if you would direct your questions and comments to the discussion forums rather than leaving them here on the blog or sending them to us via email. There are an awful lot of good conversations happening, particularly on email, that we would like to share with the broader Manager Tools community. If you have a particular challenge or question for us, it’s very likely that others do so as well … sharing your problems/questions on the discussion forum will allow all of us to benefit and learn!

Last week, in our detailed review of the Late Stage Coaching Model, we covered steps 1 and 2 (Feedback and Systemic Feedback) of the six steps. Today we review the last 4 steps.

As a reminder, the 6 steps of the Late Stage Coaching Model are:

1. Feedback - Key point here is one of FREQUENCY versus significance. Good adjusting feedback is relaxed, it’s professional, it’s simple, it’s respectful. But it is also DELIVERED.
2. Systemic Feedback- Systemic feedback is simply feedback about an employee failing to change behavior that they’ve agreed to work on. This is a critical and often overlooked escalation of your performance coaching, and has powerful implications. Effective Managers AVERT the need for performance coaching with this step ALL THE TIME.
3. One on One Performance Discussion - In this step you simply make YOUR agenda item during your weekly one-on-one their continued failure to perform. You talk about their performance, and review all the feedback and systemic feedback, and their lack of improvement. And you ask for their input. You’re doing FOUR things here.
   1. Reconfirming that they are performing below your standards.
   2. Creating a key documentation point.
   3. Asking for comments of ANY nature that might explain the performance issue.
   4. Asking again for ideas about how THEY can improve THEIR performance.
4. Coaching - It’s possible you never get to coaching, because the feedback, systemic feedback, and direct one-on-one discussion get the point across. We hope so, we BELIEVE so… until they don’t get it. And then we coach them.
5. Formal Performance Discussion and Notification - This discussion is similar to the first one. But now, you’re doing FIVE things.
   1. Reconfirming that they are performing below your standards.
   2. Creating a key documentation point.
   3. Asking for comments of ANY nature that might explain the performance issue.
   4. Asking again for ideas about how THEY can improve THEIR performance.
   5. And finally, Notifying them about the implications of continued failure to improve.
6. Coaching Within Your Corporate Process - We can’t tell you what it is; it’s different in every company. You coach them using the MT coaching model, modifying it to allow for your organization’s final steps or system. If you’ve followed the process we’ve described, you’ll be in a great position to comply with whatever processes exist in your company prior to finally letting someone go.

As we’ve said repeatedly, you use this model ALL THE TIME, not just when you have someone you intend to let go. 99 times out of 100, behavior changes and you never get to step 6.

Questions or comments? Chat with us about them in the Discussion Forums.

Thanks to everyone participating on the Discussion Forums … we’re all learning!