When a manager terminates a highly valued employee, then sets up a new workflow or otherwise changes the approach of a work group, what happens when the changes don’t age well? What happens if the changes, in fact, quickly reveal themselves to be mistakes, some of which are irreversible?
No More Approvals with Just Single Executive Signoff
If the manager terminated an employee who up until that point was seen as being highly valued, only to find this was a grave mistake, it isn’t necessarily possible to correct. If it isn’t possible to correct, one option is to make it much harder for the manager to make such decisions.
In addition to requiring executive approval, as they may have had to do before, a more-than-cursory review process can be put in place to more closely scrutinize their decisions. The next time the manager wants to hire or fire an employee, they would need more than an executive’s signature; they would face a few different executives who, as a panel, would ask questions so the manager would almost have to do what a doctoral student does when they defend their thesis.
Then, the panel would insist that if loss of job was in question for another employee, that the manager bring the employee into the conversation as a failsafe to address this “thesis” the manager has presented about why they want to terminate.
You could use the same approach after a manager has demonstrated poor judgment in spending the department’s budget. No more single executive signoff. Before any money is spent, they must get signoff from multiple executives.
Acknowledging Failure and Finding Solutions
In some cases, a manager will refuse to admit a mistake was made. It’s up to the manager’s boss and other executives, then, to point out and impress on the manager that the action they took was a mistake.
“I think six months after you made the decision to terminate Shirley that we can all acknowledge it was a mistake. Our HR team has asked that we try to move forward without rehiring her, as the termination prompted the elimination of her position and a restructuring of the department. These are not things that are easily undone. We had expressed concerns to you, Tom, before you took this action, and you put together what we thought at the time was a compelling case. It seems now, upon further reflection, that you may have overblown information about Shirley’s ‘shortcomings’ and given us other information out of context. It was, in other words, obviously, more about personal grudge than a true performance case.”
The manager then would need to take responsibility and offer solutions for a path forward. Learning professionals and the HR team could work with the manager to not only find solutions but to make sure the failure is a teachable moment, so the same thing never happens again.
Mentoring from Longtime Successful Managers
If a manager is new to their role as a departmentwide leader, they can be paired with a successful counterpart from another department. That peer may have greater multidimensional management experience, including managing employees of all different levels, from new hires to senior level. They can offer guidance that may help the manager identify where they went wrong.
“Tom, do you think it’s possible that there was nothing wrong with Shirley’s performance, but that you were not managing her correctly? You were applying the same approach to someone nearly as experienced as yourself that you were using with new hires. No wonder why her response to you came across as resistance. She wasn’t resisting in most cases; she was simply explaining how she was used to doing things from many years of experience and asking you to understand that she had her own way of doing things, rather than being the blank slate a new hire may be.”
Supervision from Learning Professionals or HR
For the first six months after a major management misstep has occurred, a Learning professional or Human Resources professional could sit in on the manager’s meetings. They could point out when the manager’s approach is coming across as heavy handed or when they are giving instructions to employees that are too vague or otherwise unreasonable. They also can stay with the manager after the meeting is over to help them debrief and assimilate the information gathered from employees.
For example: “What was your takeaway from the feedback employees gave you about your ideas on how best to boost efficiency?”
The manager then would be able to demonstrate that they had listened and understood their employees’ concerns—or reveal they still weren’t getting it.
When a manager missteps and continues “not to get it,” it may be time to rethink what may have been the ultimate management misstep of all—promoting a person to a departmentwide role who ultimately proved to be incompetent.
What is the learning process in your organization following management missteps?