Seek First to Understand

If you manage people (whether paid staff or volunteers) there will be times where they don’t live up to your clearly communicated expectations.

• No matter how often you’ve taught your team “Five minutes early – Right on Time” from time to time someone is going to show up late.
• No matter how often you’ve taught your team “Run to conflict” from time to time someone is going to avoid conflict like the plague.
• No matter how often you’ve taught your team that announcements should be “Inspirational – not informational” from time to time someone is going to announce only the details without giving a strong “why” for the “what.”
• On and on the list goes.

Now when this happens (which you can count on as much as death and taxes) you need to know how to properly respond.

1. You can get really mad on the inside (which results from assuming the worst about the person – that they did what they did because they don’t respect you or care about your rules).
2. You can call them out publicly in hopes that the embarrassment will motivate them not to repeat the behavior (which is always a bad idea).
3. You can pull them aside and immediately begin correcting them privately (which isn’t as bad as option two but is still the wrong place to begin).
4. You can seek first to understand (and this is the win).

When staff (paid or not) don’t live up to your clearly communicated expectations, don’t get mad, don’t jump to any conclusions, don’t begin to reprimand, seek first to understand. Here’s what that looks like:

Let’s pretend Cindy (one of your employees) shows up late to a meeting. You’re really irritated and want to call her out publicly. You think to yourself “Why doesn’t Cindy respect me? Why does she think she can do whatever she wants?” You’re really tempted to just lace into her but then you remember that the proper response is “seek first to understand” so you refrain from jumping to conclusions or doing anything right away. But after the meeting is over you say to her “Hey, is everything ok? I noticed you were late to our meeting and just wanted to check in.” Cindy replies “Yes, I’m really sorry about that. I left the house in plenty of time but there was a major accident on the highway and I got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Again, I’m really sorry about that.” If that is her response you’ll be very glad you didn’t jump to any conclusions or lace into her. Had you done that you’d now be eating crow.

However, if when you check in with her she gives some lame excuse – and there wasn’t some uncontrollable event or emergency – then you can bring the needed coaching. It may be appropriate to lace into her a bit (especially if she’s late after repeated warnings). So understand: I’m not advocating that you don’t hold staff to the standard or call them on the carpet when necessary, only that you “seek first to understand” before doing so.

But do you see how important it is to “seek first to understand?” If you don’t start here, you will inevitably approach the situation in the wrong way, which will make you the person who has done something wrong vs your staff. So again, always “seek first to understand.”

I want to say a special thank you to Rachel Axtmann who taught me this really important lesson on managing staff.