A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.

—GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING

In developing others, you must engage in two kinds of critical conversations to create alignment and eliminate assumptions—both yours and theirs:

• Baseline conversations set mutual expectations; define ground rules; provide metrics to evaluate performance; clarify boundaries; and establish alignment around strategies, objectives, and tactics.
• Feedback conversations maintain alignment, address changes and unexpected developments, and resolve issues in order to follow an effective path toward the agreed-on objectives.

You might currently avoid these conversations because they can be difficult, time-consuming, and uncomfortable—especially if not handled properly. Or you might use the excuse of having to finish a high-priority task to evade or truncate the conversations. Hold these conversations—nothing is more urgent. If you do not hold them, the actions you and your people take will be based on differing assumptions and will deliver less than optimum results. Even worse, sidestepping baseline and feedback conversations can undermine relationships and limit your ability to develop others. An additional irony is that dealing with the chaos of misalignment usually takes more time than proactively engaging in up-front conversations to avoid it.

Olivia was promoted to vice president, overseeing 120 people in a financial services company. After two months in the new job, she asked her boss for an outside coach to assist in the transition. The boss agreed to a three-month, thirty-hour coaching program. During the first session, Olivia mentioned that two men who reported to her had previously been her peers. The coach asked, “What baseline conversations did you have with them when you took the new position?” She looked puzzled for a moment and acknowledged that she had not held baseline conversations with them or any other member of her team.

Olivia had simply assumed that they would treat her differently now that she was the boss, but had not discussed her expectations with them or asked them what role they wanted her to play in their development. The coach role-played with her to prepare for her first real leadership conversation. The coaching engagement ended after only three hours when Olivia realized that holding baseline conversations, rather than making assumptions, was a better way to build effective working relationships.

Get to know your people before crunch time so that you will be prepared to guide them when challenges emerge. Make it a point to speak with them regularly, even when there are no pressing business topics. Ask about their goals and discuss what they might do to achieve them. Provide feedback and offer to mentor them. We sometimes are asked how often baseline and feedback conversations should be held. There is no pat answer, but frequent conversations are essential for building relationships and maintaining high performance levels. You probably will not be able to address all four types of conversation unless you meet with each of your people at least monthly, and possibly weekly for high potentials. Routine feedback should occur on a daily basis as situations present themselves.

Several events should automatically trigger a baseline conversation: a merger or reorganization, a shift in strategy or priorities, a new customer or strategic partner, a new person joining the team, or a key person leaving. Public and private feedback conversations are appropriate when someone performs especially well, a major goal is achieved, or a breakthrough occurs. Likewise, it is vital to have feedback conversations—even if they are uncomfortable—when attitudes are poor, relationships are strained, a project is botched, or a customer is lost.

Baseline and feedback conversations should be dialogues. Avoid jumping to conclusions or forcing an answer. Look for a new view that might not have occurred to either of you before. Although the list of topics that could precipitate a baseline or feedback conversation is long, the following sections cover a few events and situations that are likely to trigger conversations with high potentials and other direct reports, either individually or as a group.

Baseline Conversations to Set Expectations

One of the early conversations when someone joins your team should be to set mutual expectations about character and courage, align belief systems, and lay the foundation for trust and respect. For instance, you might describe character as a moral compass, but note that character without courage is impotent. Similarly, courage without character is risky. Character is more than just knowing right from wrong—it is doing the right thing every time. Or you may talk about trusted relationships and provide your views on earning respect, accepting responsibility for results, doing the best job possible, and putting team success ahead of personal success. Ask him if it is possible to lead without trust or to gain trust without integrity, good character, and genuinely caring about others. The key is that the new person fully participates in the conversation.

You also might set expectations about balancing the competing demands of financial success, growth, and social responsibility. Tell your people what you expect from them relative to environmentally sustainable business practices, collaborating with others, and accepting the sometimes higher cost of those two approaches. Encourage high potentials to be creative in transforming those practices into a strategic advantage.

For example, a business owner promoted a high potential to manage sales for a new type of customer service agreement. Three months later, he complained that “she’s not doing a good job.” When we asked him what the guidelines were for doing a good job, he stammered and said, “I’m not sure. I just expected more sales than I’m getting.” The baseline conversation that followed set month-by-month sales goals, developed innovative promotional strategies, and allocated advertising and other resources in a way that both the new sales manager and the business owner accepted—and those goals were achieved. Months later he told us, “She’s the best promotion I ever made—especially now that I’m a better leader.”

Baseline Conversations about Performance Standards

If you were to ask five top leaders from five organizations what they considered the definition of doing a good job, each would offer a compelling and unique answer. Your definition may well be the sixth. Likewise, each of your high potentials has his or her definition. Therefore, a baseline conversation about goals and performance metrics is essential to align your high potential’s definition with yours. The product of the conversation should be a clearly written statement on goals and metrics that covers the following results as appropriate to the position:

• Financial results: revenue, budget, costs, profits, and growth rate
• Customer results: branding, satisfaction, retention, and acquisition
• Production results: quality, deadlines, and development of new products
• Relationship results: new and stronger internal and external relationships
• Social results: community involvement, charities, and environmental protection
• Leadership results: developing people, building culture, and communications
• Personal growth: training, academic degrees, and professional certifications

In creating this agreement, ask your high potential what she expects to achieve in each area. You often will be surprised and delighted by her response. The agreement might specify quarterly, annual, and multiyear objectives. Of course, the agreement is bidirectional. What will you and your organization do to help the high potential fulfill the agreed-to objectives and realize her full potential?

Baseline Conversations about Relationships

In our experience, baseline and feedback conversations about relationships are the ones that executives sidestep most frequently. For example, Brady had worked for the company since earning his MBA and, after eighteen years, was one of five executives on the strategic leadership team. He managed nearly half the revenue and directed several strategic initiatives, including acquisition of a firm that now reported to him. Abruptly, the CEO called Brady into his office and said that the former CEO of the acquired company had complained about Brady’s harshness and unrealistic goals, so oversight of the acquired company was being transferred to another executive.

Brady was furious. Not only was he not consulted about the reasons for the transfer, but he did not get a chance to address differences with the former CEO or present his view of the “harshness and unrealistic goals.” Obviously, the CEO had not held effective baseline or feedback conversations. He had failed to address the former CEO’s complaints earlier with Brady, undercut Brady with a preemptive decision, and failed to fully evaluate the situation before taking action. But the CEO’s primary failure really occurred months earlier when he did not hold a three-way baseline conversation with Brady and the former CEO relative to goals for the acquired company and the expected relationship between Brady and the former CEO. Your direct reports must know your expectations not only in regard to performance but also in regard to the roles they will play and their working relationships.

Baseline Conversations about Priorities

This can be hard to hear, but you may be causing your people to work on the wrong priorities. If this is the case, it is likely that you are not working on your top priorities either. Unless you are an individual contributor, you should be leading and managing, not doing production work. Getting your people what they need to be successful is your top priority. One way to determine whether you are working on the right things is to ask your high potentials if they are receiving the direction, support, resources, and coaching they need to get the job done. You may not like their answers, but now you will have a prioritized to-do list.

Your calendar is another indicator of whether you and your high potentials are working on the right priorities. The items on your schedule are what you consider to be top priorities. The higher your position, the longer the time horizon should be for the items on your calendar. A short time horizon, say a few weeks, might be appropriate for a first-line manager; a horizon of years would be typical for a CXO. If a CXO’s calendar is filled with meetings about near-term topics, her short-term goals may be met, but long-term results may be in jeopardy because the future is not receiving the planning attention it needs. Similarly, an executive leader whose calendar is crammed with production review meetings rather than strategic planning is also not adequately addressing the future.

Another indicator of whether your high potentials are working on the right priorities is the plans they submit for your review. The sections that receive the most space, the most thought, and the most research reveal their priorities (and to some extent, their strengths). If the plan is unclear or based on questionable assumptions, the high potential may not value or be good at planning (a vital skill at any level), and it would be an appropriate time for a feedback conversation to get him back on track.

Feedback Conversations about Achieving Goals

Once performance goals are established, periodic conversations are necessary to compare results to the goals and adjust strategies when necessary. Consider Marilyn, for example, an attorney who seemed destined to be a star. She had great client skills and was brilliant at settling complex issues. Revenue from her clients grew steadily, and after two years she was put in charge of a group of clients who generated over $5 million in annual revenue. She was on the fast track. During her annual review at the start of each year, she was given aggressive targets for revenue and new clients, but fell short of those goals three years in a row.

We spoke with Marilyn shortly after she received a termination notice, and asked, “What happened? You looked like a sure bet to make partner.” She answered sadly, “I thought things were going well. Each year my bonus was larger. My revenue grew steadily even though it was short of the targets. I thought that’s all they were—just targets. I met with the partner monthly, but our conversations were usually about tactics relative to individual clients.”

After a painful pause, she added, “There were no consequences for missing targets—until now. I wasn’t coached or mentored, and suddenly my job and potential partnership are gone.”

We see this cycle repeatedly: promote or hire a hero, admire his initial performance, let him do things on his own, give him big goals, and then part ways after a few years because he fell short of expectations. The problem usually can be traced back to lack of clear initial goals or lack of frank, regular, and useful feedback conversations to guide the high potential toward achieving those goals.

Feedback Conversations When Roles Get Turned Upside Down

When roles and relationships get turned upside down, as often happens in crisis situations, straighten them out. Consider Ava, a registered engineer, who was promoted from lead engineer to project manager in a nationwide engineering services company. As project manager, she directed seven people on one big project and three smaller ones. After two weeks in the new position, Ava told her boss, Justin, that the big project was behind schedule. Justin, concerned that the client would be upset if the deadline were missed, told Ava, “Do what it takes to meet the schedule. I’ll handle your other projects.” After a month of extensive overtime, the big project finished on time, and the client was delighted. Ava and Justin got bonuses from the boss for their heroic efforts and long overtime. Justin also told his boss, “Ava has high potential—she’ll be my replacement when I’m promoted.”

You may be thinking, “What’s wrong? They got the job done.” That would be your management mindset speaking. By management standards, Ava and Justin did a super job; but, unfortunately, they turned leadership roles upside down to do it. Justin set a precedent by assuming control in a crisis and turning project managers into highly paid individual contributors. As a result, project managers did not learn to allocate resources in a crisis—a key lesson for first-line managers. And Justin, as a manager of managers, failed to implement a process to share resources in crisis situations. He reacted like a project manager and abandoned his leadership responsibilities. Several feedback conversations should have taken place in this situation:

• Ava should have asked Justin for assistance in managing multiple projects while respectfully declining to revert back to her old job.
• Justin should have used feedback conversations with first-line managers to identify problem projects early and work as a team to finish them on time.
• Justin’s boss should have provided feedback to mentor him in how to develop the skills of a first-line manager.

It is hard to tell when people are working at the wrong level because the management focus is on getting things done—the long-term leadership costs of not developing people are ignored. In this case, everyone felt good about Ava and Justin’s accomplishment; they were unaware that they had laid the foundation for future project and leadership issues.

Feedback Conversations about Underperformance

One of the most uncomfortable yet essential feedback conversations you will face is counseling a high potential whose underperformance is adversely affecting the morale and performance of the entire team. The underperformer may be misusing resources, focusing on the wrong priorities, operating at the wrong level, or causing personnel conflicts. This person must be mentored, coached, moved to a lower level, or asked to leave.

Short tenures are a sign of the times, but they also can be an indicator of weak leadership. So, before taking rash action, determine why performance has dropped. Provide a factual performance assessment and discuss what is happening. People with outstanding past performance records may struggle with the responsibilities of a new position or a difficult situation for several reasons:

• They do not have the qualifications or personality you expected.
• The mindset that made them successful in the past has now become a liability.
• They fail to develop relationships with their boss, peers, or direct reports.
• They are unable to deal with the broader requirements of the new situation.
• A personal issue is interfering with their performance.

Of course, it is also possible that organizational factors such as inadequate resources or fuzzy job responsibilities are affecting performance. If so, take it upon yourself to fix those conditions. It is essential to conclude the feedback conversation with an action plan that (1) defines what each of you will do to ensure that performance improves, (2) specifies the metrics that define improvement, and (3) establishes progress milestones. In addition, discuss potential consequences should performance not improve. Consider the situation to be an opportunity to employ your mentoring and coaching skills.

Feedback Conversations about Timeliness

Your timeliness (or lack thereof) as a leader sets an example for your people. Maybe that is why completing work on schedule and showing up on time are common issues that few executives are willing to address. To accelerate the growth of high potentials, coach them regarding their choices, actions, reactions, and priorities—and insist that they be on time. For example, in terms of skills, Larry was a high potential. But he was consistently late to meetings and behind on projects. He worked long hours to achieve miraculous recoveries, but his tardiness disrupted the office routine and annoyed clients. The office joke was that Larry was born late and had never caught up. He had a microwave mentality: a self-limiting mindset that led him to do everything as fast as possible and always at the last second.

Rather than arriving at a meeting a few minutes early fully prepared, people like Larry think, “If I arrive early, I’ll waste time waiting. Besides, I can finish one more task before I go.” When he was lucky, Larry was not the last person to arrive; but when he was, he often disrupted meetings. If you tolerate a Larry on your team, you are lowering standards and sabotaging your team’s efficiency. Lead by example: start and end meetings on time. Hold baseline and feedback conversations with each Larry on your staff to set timeliness standards and show him the adverse impacts of his behavior.

Feedback Conversations with Your Boss

Are you courageous enough to have a feedback conversation with your boss when he or she is disrupting work, acting like a jerk, or being abusive or unethical? One CEO was lucky enough to have a high potential tell him, “John, you may be the best project manager in the entire company, but your job is CEO. Do your job and let us do ours. We are fully capable of getting everything done without your micromanagement.” John was working at the wrong level. As his company grew, he moved quickly from a first-line manager to a CEO whose role was to forge strategic alliances in the industry. Like everyone else, bosses struggle with blind spots and lightning-fast changes. In some cases, they were promoted because of their past performance rather than their leadership skills. This is just one of a thousand topics that could necessitate a feedback conversation with your boss.

Be empathetic in feedback conversations with your boss because one day you may find yourself on the receiving side of a similar conversation with your high potentials. Initiate the conversation by explaining what you are seeing and how you believe the organization can be more successful. Ensure that the conversation engages all three perspectives: what each of you is seeing, understanding each other, and exploring new possibilities. Feedback conversations with your boss are also different from conversations with direct reports because you are likely to be assigned most of the action items at the end. Keep in mind that the purpose of any feedback conversation is to assist people in reaching agreed-on goals—not to cast blame. In our experience, upward feedback is as necessary and common in high-performing organizations as are downward and peer-based feedback conversations.

When Routine Conversations Do Not Work

What do you do when baseline and feedback conversations do not work? When routine conversations fail to produce the results you seek, use one or more of these approaches:

Examine your relationship. Ensure that your relationship is deep enough for the person to accept coaching and mentoring from you. If it is not, hold a relationship-building conversation to establish mutual trust and respect. Approach the conversation with the mindset that you share an issue—not that the other person is the problem. Frame the conversation jointly as an opportunity to improve performance, and identify the benefits that each of you will realize by working together more effectively.

Are external factors affecting performance? If a personal issue outside of work is compromising performance, do not attempt to empathize by saying you know how the other person feels. Even if you have experienced a similar problem, you cannot really know how he feels. Instead ask, “I can’t imagine how you feel; would you tell me?” If he says no, respond with, “I am here when you’re ready. Can we talk again tomorrow?” If he continues the silence, it may be wise to engage HR in the situation.

Discuss the person’s goals. Assuming the relationship is on solid ground, have a deeper developing-others conversation. Learn what matters most to this person. Discuss her career goals and demonstrate that you are committed to assisting her reach the ones that you both agree are realistic. Then link the difficult issue at hand to reaching her goals.

Are they seeing a new you? As a high potential, you are continually learning new skills and exhibiting behaviors that enable you to perform at higher levels. Yet unless you share that learning with your people, it can take a long time before they see, understand, and accept that you are acting differently and that they can respond to you differently. To work powerfully with them, you need to teach them what you have learned and use concrete business situations as a way to drive home the learning. They usually will react better if they feel a shared, connected purpose in your conversations with them.

It takes two to tango. Some personality styles do not mesh. If you suspect that to be the case with one of your direct reports, ask another executive to take him into her organization for a limited time on a special project. That will enable the person to apply his skills on new tasks while allowing the other executive to try to form a connection. If the special project finishes successfully, hold a three-way conversation and consider making the transfer permanent.

The last resort. Some people may be uncoachable. Others may be unwilling to commit to the standards required for your organization to thrive. Some cannot adapt to your culture. Or they may be in a job that is not right for them. If any of these are the case, document the facts regarding the performance issues and speak with your HR department. With its guidance, you might turn the conversation toward assisting the individual in finding another job or another career. If you have taken all these steps and none have worked, firing the employee may be the only viable option remaining. Although doing so is painful, it is often the best thing for everyone when done in the right way and for the right reasons.