You didn’t say I’d be fired!
One of my clients told me of a time where he had a problem employee. He increased his feedback to his employee, telling him if he didn’t shape up, he’d be let go. The employee never improved.
So one day, this manager called the employee into the room to tell him he was fired. The employee was shocked.
The manager was confused. He said to his employee I told you if you didn’t shape up you’d be let go.
The employee’s response: yes, but you didn’t say I’d be fired.
This employee was a blithering idiot, right? Well, maybe not.
What else could let go mean?
It could mean transferred to a different department, different manager, and different position.
Maybe the employee thought I’d be let go to another department or I’d be let go to another position, or finally – I’ll be let go and away from this manager I can’t stand!
Whether it was denial, ignorance, hearing what we want to hear – we all have been on the employee side of this. I know I have – with peers, friends and family. Especially family!
And as managers our best attempts to be clear can still lead to different conclusions then what we were communicating.
Are there any guarantees to get the communication right?
Well, no.
But there are steps you can take to minimize miscommunication. They can include making sure you understand what you are comfortable saying and not saying, getting your employees (or the person you’re communicating to) to repeat back what they heard, and following up if this is something which will go over a period of time.
When I accept my best and obvious communications can still be received in a way I didn’t attend:
• I try to be more specific in precarious situations
• I listen and observe more after the conversation to see if anything has changed
• I stop before I talk to think (and even write) things through
The brilliance of communications is its up to so much interpretation and creativity. And therein lays the challenge as well.