Blunt Applying the Thought Model

 Malik Blunt

11.16.2023

In my time as a leader and manager at my current company, I have often found myself in

circumstances that have posed challenges for the individual assigned a task, me as their direct manager, and the department, when expectations and quality checks were not met. In the situation I will be writing about today, the lack of progress caused strain between the management levels of the department, the frontline levels of the department, and the level of service provided to guests. The individual was tasked with executing a series of emergency response training courses for all frontline staff to improve knowledge and response time. The individual had been working on the information for about a year and within that year, no progress was ever reported or shown, and when an inquiry was made, excuses were given. This led to complications when emergencies arose, and a lackluster performance on the frontline behalf.

From my point of view, this individual was complacent in their role and had no desire to

complete any tasks, as there had been no consequences the entire year prior for their current level of work. They were here for a paycheck and weren't committed to improving the team or completing assigned tasks. The circumstance we found ourselves in can be seen as a basic one, but it is arguably the most likely scenario to cause problems in other aspects of the department. As we have several management levels above this individual’s role, many thoughts arise from this person not meeting set expectations such as: "they aren't committed to the job," "they are complacent in their role," "They want to step down, but don't know how to say it," "they aren't fit for the position," and many more. Having so many negative thoughts regarding an individual leads to an unfortunate number of feelings regarding that individual. Many were angry that expectations weren't met; some were irritated he wasn't being held accountable; others were concerned for the fate of the department with him in his current role. All of these negative feelings caused his managers to continue to let him fail to meet expectations to build a case towards him being forcibly demoted a lower position. This caused the individual to drop even further in his goal to meet expectations, meet deadlines, and complete assigned tasks. 

This situation has since been rectified and a lot of the techniques used in this thought model were implemented (albeit not in the exact way) to kickstart the individual's growth, and achieve a better result in this scenario. Working backwards with the thought model, the result I ultimately wanted for the individual was for him to be able to meet all expectations moving forward, and not give the perception of complacency. Moving onto what action(s) that need to be taken, I had to think of several instances of why an individual may not be performing their job effectively. I came up with 3 reasons as to why an individual could be failing in their role:

1. They are bad at their role, and don't care to fix it 

2. They are bad at their role, and don't know how to fix it

3. They don't know they are bad at their role. 

We identify which of these instances the individual is experiencing by sitting down and discussing their performance and the concerns that have come from the performance. Using this technique, I was able to identify the cause of their failure and, together with them, come up with measurable and attainable goals to improve performance. Through this course of action, the shift in how I felt about the situation changed from irritation to understanding through empathy. Quite frankly, I felt bad for not being able to help before the situation reached the point that it did. Through this exercise, I instead thought, "They aren't getting the help they need;" and "They aren't clear on what the expectations are". Once thoughts and feelings shifted from the original response and I was able to sit down and come up with a solution with the individual, there was almost a night and day difference in his performance. By reviewing expectations and setting measurable and obtainable goals he was able to improve almost immediately and meet expectations.

When I recognized that the thought process and feelings toward the individual needed to be changed, it became clear that adjustments needed to be made on multiple levels to get the desired outcome. While major changes to an employee's performance can't always be observed within a few days or even weeks in some instances, minor improvements can be observed in other smaller tasks and the quality of those completed tasks. While the actual results are on par with what I predicted would happen, it led to insight into how, as managers and leaders, we can't let our preconceived notions dictate how we decide to act with other members of the team. While much of the management team didn't need more clarity on the expectations, this individual did. By applying this model to what I did, it’s easy to identify where the thoughts and feelings may not coincide with the reality of an individual's performance. The next steps are to apply and disseminate this way of thinking to other members of the management team that I work with in order to better cultivate an environment where individuals get the

help they need, free from judgment.