Motivating Potential

Motivating Potential

Playing the role of Pat I was able to ascertain and learn a lot from my discussion with Terry. Although I could tell there were quite a few issues with Terry’s behavior and performance I was able to calmly engage him in a collegiate and professional dialogue that eventually allowed us to move on to an appropriate conclusion where I feel we both were able to get what we wanted from the conversation. In my case, as Pat, it was an improvement in work performance and an understanding that such behavior is not acceptable in a working environment.

Beginning the conversation, I asked Terry if everything was going ok and why he was late on this project and why he missed the recent deadline. I reminded him that myself and everyone in the office thinks very highly of him and I recognized the great rapport he has with some of the clients. He calmly reiterated to me that he was unaware of the importance of the deadline, which I took as him being defensive since he has never done this in the past when he was the project lead. I calmly asked him if everything was ok at home which he replied at having some familial personal issues but expressed that this was not the cause for him being late. That he can separate personal issues from work issues. He said that the communication delegated by me was not clear enough on the importance of the deadline.

Despite the fact that I thought that to be a bit childish, I proceeded to apologize for not being clear enough and that I would work on that in the future. I did ask Terry, after he stated this that he has never been late before in the past and since he is such an integral part of the team there has to be something else going on. He very politely and honestly responded that he was upset that I had him doing work that he felt the more junior personnel should be working on instead of him. Again, I found this a bit childish and self-centered in that success is always predicated upon everyone working together as...