Managing Tough Conversations

August 1, 2015

Sooner or later, every manager needs to have one of those conversations with a member of their staff. It’s the type of conversation that usually begins, “I need to see you in my office…” And from there it usually goes downhill.

One of the challenges of managing a museum store is that many times staff members are often your friends. Many stores have small staffs that spends long hours together. You really get to know your staff. And that’s great, you want an environment where everyone feels comfortable. But ultimately your job is to manage your staff, as you work to make the store a success.

If you strive for professionalism as a manager, then it’s inevitable you will find fault with certain members of your staff from time to time. After all, they may be just part-time employees or employees who are working at your store while waiting for the opportunity to move on to greener pastures. Often, their goals are far different than your goals. So you may be dealing with employees who are disengaged, distracted, or disenchanted (or just plain different). Managers of museum stores often deal with a broad spectrum of employees. You have to deal with different personality styles, different ages, and different backgrounds.

Of course, the temptation as manager is to hope either the problem or the employee will go away before you have to deal with it. Keith Sanders, a management coach and president of Keith Sanders International, suggests that you shouldn’t wait to deal with a problem employee. “Stop the bad behavior right away,” he says. Instead of waiting for annual or semiannual employee reviews, give employee reviews quarterly. This way, according Sanders, you can keep your employees focused forward and spend less time dealing with past problems.

Keith Sanders’ advice is to begin the communication process right away. Make sure your team understands the goals you and your institution have set. If they begin to stray from that path, you can’t wait to create the steps they need to follow to improve. Talk to them. Hear their ideas on ways to fix a problem.

Erika Anderson, in an article in Forbes magazine, outlined ways to deal with difficult employees. (9 Ways to Deal with Difficult Employees, 11/12/2013). Included on the list is to listen, give feedback, document, be consistent, set consequences, and to use your organization’s process for managing human resources.

By having clear guidelines to follow, it’s much easier to deal with problems as they arise. It’s also the best way to give every member of your team a fair shake. Whether an employee is a friend or strictly a member of the staff, they should all understand that when it comes down to managing the store, you mean business. Never forget you and your staff are all retail professionals. That expectation should be clear to everyone.

If your employee performance is heading down the path to unemployment, they should be sat down and talked to and made aware their role in the store is at serious risk. Sanders’ advice, “employees should know they are on that track… so that they will never be surprised by the termination.”

It’s one thing to have a conversation that helps your employee improve we all need that once and while, but it’s an absolutely different thing when it comes time to terminate that employee. That’s a conversation you really don’t want to have.

For more information visit Keith Sanders website keithsanders.com

Keith Sanders, will also be presenting a MSA webinar on August 12th that deals specifically with difficult conversations.

Photo by Kenny Louie