Understanding how to have a productive confrontation begins with a quick self-assessment. Do you:
Shy away from the problem and hope it will solve itself, or, the other extreme,
Take employees to the proverbial “wood shed” and vent your frustration or anger, without thinking it through carefully in advance?
The former requires living in fantasy land and will get you nowhere. The latter will only make matters worse.
Motivating yourself to become skilled at productive confrontation begins by thinking through the nature and impact of the problem(s) you seek to address. Sometimes they run deeper than you might think.
For example, if an employee fails to give you a report you need in time to prepare you for meeting with a big customer or prospect, what is the impact? If it’s that you hold the meeting without the facts and analysis you need to make a successful presentation, and you lose the customer or prospect, that’s a high price. But it’s not all that’s at stake.
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