Concern Statement
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Now when we get ready to share our
"Concern Statement",
there are some criteria that we want to
make sure we keep in mind,
and that is that we are talking about
both actual and desired behaviors
or performance.
We are talking only about
things that are factual.
We're not making assumptions.
Here is an example.
An assumption is
"Sue, you have a bad attitude."
What's factual is, "Sue, we've noticed
you don't smile when you come to work,
you don't participate in our
team meetings,
you've been missing deadlines."
Just get rid of the word "bad attitude".
I encourage you to not ever tell
someone they have a bad attitude.
Because how does that go over?
Not well.
"Who are you to tell me I
have a bad attitude?"
Right? Yeah. So be factual.
Or, "This person is aggressive."
Tell me what you see that's leading
you to put that label on that person.
Or, "This person doesn't care."
Tell me what you see that leads you
to cast that label
that this person doesn't care.
Has anyone ever told
you that you don't care?
It's like, "Wait, time out.
You don't know.
You don't have a lens into my brain
and into my heart."
So let's talk about what you see,
not what you think.
Stay above the line;
stay with what's observable.
And then the desired behavior
statement must—
once it's implemented—
resolve the issue.
And some situations are a little
bit more complex
and we'll talk about that when we look
at a couple of examples.
We can't always easily add—
"...Ok, and the desired performance
that I'm looking for,
the desired behavior
I'm looking for is this."
That's not always easy.
This kind of makes it look like it is,
but it isn't always easy.
And then the last thing is,
especially in work
—you can do it differently
as a parent—
but in work, instead of
getting comfortable with the phrase,
"Well, my expectation is..."
use the phrase, "The expectation is..."
And the expectation is, because
you're a representative of
this organization and
you're representing
the cultural expectations,
the performance expectations.
So you want to neutralize
your own power
to your people and to your coworkers.
If you're part of a team, and as a team
you've put agreements in place for
how you're going to work together,
you can say, "...and you know the
agreement that we made as a team
is that we were all
going to be on time."
Or, "The agreement that we made as a
team is that we were all going to meet
our deadlines so we didn't adversely
affect other people on the team."
So then we get to our
actual "Concern Statement" with Joe,
and let's just check this
for "is it factual".
"I've noticed, Joe, that you've come
late to work on four occasions
in the last two weeks by a
minimum of ten minutes.
We agreed as a team that
we would arrive on time."
Is that factual?
Is that void of assumption?
Let's go back and look at the other.
Is it free of criticism?
And does it include a
desired behavior which once implemented
would resolve the issue?
Yeah.
And did we start with the expectation?
In this case, I took it out.
I softened it a bit just because
I knew some of you aren't
formal leaders of people.
You wouldn't use that terminology
if you're talking with a teammate.
You wouldn't say,
"And the expectation is..."
So to make it relevant
to the situation,
you'd look at how do I
shift the language
so that I'm not off-putting to people.
So in this case, it's like, hey,
we agreed
that we were going to do this.
Now, if this is the boss,
with the boss—we just make suggestions
and then we have to kind of
let it go, or we ask favors
and then we kind of let it go.
We might not be monitoring
our boss for timeliness,
although let's pretend that
Joe is the boss and we say to our boss,
"You know, I've noticed that you've come
in late for..." let's say meetings,
because we're not going to
monitor our boss's arrival time.
"But over the last couple of weeks,
you've come to meetings late
three times and...
we all agreed as a team
that we would be on time...
and so I'm just concerned on
behalf of the team."
And we use tentative language
and we use respectful language
when we're talking upward.
Another example, this one is behavioral.
This is an example where
some people would just say,
"I don't like your attitude."
Because look at this list of stuff.
In this one we're saying,
"I've noticed that during our meetings,
you were checking your messages
on your cell phone,
you rolled your eyes twice, and sighed
loudly on several occasions.
Finally, you walked out of the meeting
ten minutes before we were
scheduled to end.
We agreed when we..."
Let's just stop there for a minute.
What some people would do is,
they wouldn't list all
those specific things,
and they would just say,
"You know what, Joe?
I just don't like your attitude
as a member of this team."
Right?
Wouldn't some of you maybe do that?
And so people have said,
"Are you kidding me?
I've got to tell him that he's rolling
his eyes and leaving early
and sighing loudly?"
Yeah, because that's the behavior
that's disruptive to people.
So if I'm the boss of Joe,
I'm responsible to get a handle on that
so the rest of the team doesn't have to
endure that, because that's not fun.
Is it?
People who kind of
show up in that way?
So then I say, "The expectation is..."
or, "We agreed when we
created our ground rules
that we would remain attentive
during meetings
and share our concerns respectfully."