This is the most challenging aspect of the coaching and counseling process: To adequately acknowledge the need to change behaviour, a person must be compelled to search for, examine and question those unconscious assumptions they have buried deep in the recesses of their mind. He/she must challenge the prevailing patterns that have been acquired and formed over time and life experiences, and replace them with more positive, effective and productive patterns. This is truly why so much coaching and counseling is ineffective in bringing about internal and lasting change to employees with behaviour problems.
At this stage of the process, most employees will say whatever they think is necessary to get out of the counseling session and do whatever is necessary to keep their jobs. They modify their behaviour to your expectation until doing so becomes too much of a burden. However, dissonance (stress) is caused when their modified, external behaviour is not in alignment with their internal understanding of how they choose to act and how they choose to see the world around them. Once that burden becomes too hard to bear, they revert back to following their internal drivers (old patterns) and their toxic behaviour returns to the workplace.
When this pattern emerges with an employee, the only question remaining is how long you will continue to invest time in someone who poisons the work place. Firing often isn’t necessary: Our practical work experience suggests that when problem employees get the sense that you are serious about behaviour accountability, they will exercise their freedom of choice and decide they do not want to work for an organization where they are held accountable for their behaviour.
Much of conventional thinking would have us believe we should be spending the majority of our time trying to “cure” the ills of our behaviour-problem employees at the expense of time spent developing the skill and talent of our middle and high-level performers. We need to challenge this thinking and have the courage to replace it with a model that focuses on developing and exploiting the skills of our high performers while mitigating the detrimental behaviour of the problem employee. Build a culture based on individual behaviour accountability and you will eliminate your recruiting and retention problem. You will also gain the respect and appreciation of your loyal and productive members of the organization.
Allowing employees with a bad attitude to work in the organization is a morale killer. When leaders begin to hold employees accountable for their attitudes and support a program for a new mindset skill – the skill of Positive Presence, the toxic employee will either change or leave of their own accord.
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.