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Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Trauma-Infused Workplaces, Surviving Unsupported Change, Fixing A Bad Hire - Answering Listener Questions
In this episode, we explore 3 questions from listeners and conversations with clients:
- How do you fix the culture in a Trauma-infused workplace?
- What advice would you give to someone going through a messy change, but does not have any impact on the change?
- How do you fix a bad hire after hiring or promoting them?
Our prescription for this episode: Understand the realities and impact of managing change and supporting your managers.
Past Episode Referenced:
S3 E17: How Can I Advance My Career By "Managing Up"?
You can reach out to us to talk more about any of these topics, contact us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
Don't forget to sign up for our New Quarterly Newsletter that launched in 2024.
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just m My lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And we're going to do something a little bit different today. We're going toa answer some questions posed to us by you, our faithful listeners.
[JAMES]:Yeah. So, great news. It's time for another Q and A podcast episode. We really enjoy these because it gives us a chance to dive into your questions and also topics that maybe don't fit a full, 45, 50 minute, or depending on how much we rant, even longer podcast episode. so this is your friendly reminder that you can send us your questions directly from the show notes and you know, if it's a good question, we'll use it. If not, we'll ignore it, but we thank you anyways.
[COBY]:Or you can, you can always email us questions that our email address is in the show notes too, because we're always happy to have back and forth. we should also mention we're really bad at mentioning our quarterly newsletter ah, so we should, we should definitely mention that you can click the link to sign up for a quarterly newsletter, as well if you want. If you want some extra information about, you know, kind of some cool stats or some cool ideas that we're coming across or just kind of some stuff that we feel is really helpful for people to, just kind of know or just kind of be aware of in the realm of the workplace, in organizational development space. So don'traget to do that too. Okay, so let's just temporate into the questions.
[JAMES]:Eh, Sounds good to me.
[COBY]:So last first question to you, James. How do you fix a culture in a trauma infused workplace?
[JAMES]:Yeah, yeah, so I think there's a few things we need to unpack with this, and we'll talk a bit about trauma infused workplaces, obviously. But I think this is advice that, the general advice that I'm going to give you right off the bat, I think works for anyime that you're. We need to recognize that we're dealing with people and that we're dealing with people have experienced trauma. So your go to needs to be empathy, compassion and patience. Because that is, you need to recognize that we're dealing with human beings here and that the responses that they have because of the trauma. Yeah, this is a difficult situation to be in for a lot of reasons because there's so many reasons why we can have trauma infused workplaces. It could be that, you know, there's been instances of institutional betrayal and people fundamentally do not trust anything that comes from the organization because they've been burned in the past. And so the trauma that they're dealing with is that broken promise or broken expectations or that feeling that they've been betrayed by the organization. So trust is completely eroded in the workplace. So then you've also got like, I guess we're not really talking about maybe people coming into the workplace with who have already experienced their own trauma. Although we do need to be aware of that and be sensitive to those situations because it's unrealistic for us to expect people to just completely compartmentalize every other aspect of their life. And like we've heard businesses and clients say to us that well that's their problem, they need to leave that at the door. You cannot leave part of your personality or part of who you are at the door. That is a cop outat, ah, lazy way of blaming somebody who has experienced something very traumatic.
[COBY]:Well that's like saying sorry, we're not hiring a human, we're hiring a function. So turn the human off and be a function. And that's just makes every problem.
[JAMES]:We are not pieces of machinery that just have a single output and single purpose.
[COBY]:Exactly. but just before we get too far into this question, I think I'm going to throw some definitions out there. Just people are completely on board with what we're talking about as far as both trauma infused workplaces as a term but also kind of what we mean by trauma. So the definition that I want to use for trauma infused workplace is a workplace filled with employees living with a traumatic response to past workplace events. These are things like badly handled change, bullying, interpersonal conflict, fear of losing their jobs, etc. And I think it's important to just be aware of the different types of kind. The power behind the word trauma. So we re we talking about trauma defined by the psychological diagnostic manual the DSM 5. That's kind of how people talk about trauma is like big capital T. Big big T. Trauma is when you are dealing with a threat of death or injury or sexual violence. That's like. But they kind of refer to as big T trauma. Whereas when we're talking about kind of in the context of the workplace or those kinds of things, ideally those things aren't being threatened obviously. But, but in a more common situation we talk about trauma and we kind of use kind refer to as a little t Trauma which is more about having traumatic responses to incidences that were more psychologically damaging or unsafe rather than it being about physical or that kind of stuff. So I think it's important to make sure that we're not saying that our advice is completely relevant to people dealing with big T trauma, that we're talking about the context of little T trauma within kind a normal workplace, not in the horribly over the top of toxic ones that anyway.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I mean any, every workplace can experience the small T trauma. Hopefully your workplace is not causing instances of like big ta trauma.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:But you also need to recognize that like kind of to one of the points that I made earlier, people may be coming to the workplace having experienced big T trauma and that will impact their ability to do their jobs. So again I think they like underlined throughout this entire conversation. I'm going to keep going back to you know, compassion, empathy and patience. I remember years ago like one of the kind of catchphrases of things that I I'A phrase that I heard years ago that still has a lot of meaning for me is the fact the issue is rarely the issue. So when you're dealing with individuals and there seems to be a un disproportionate response to something you're giving somebody somewhat regularly routine in directions and they snap at you, chances are the instructions have nothing to do with the response. Right. The issue underlying what's happened is rarely the issue. So that's something like that I know for myself in dealing with people has made it easier for me to not react and take personally as a leader when somebody pushes back unexpectedly or blows up at me. It's, it's something that you all need to train yourself to do. But understanding that component I think will help. But I think I'm kind of steering, I want to get back to kind of the trauma infused pieces because if we're talking small T trauma in the workplace largely the company has caused it or they've created the conditions to allow it to fester. So if it's a bullying situation, the company probably hasn't. Hopefully the company is not the one being the bully because that would be a whole another level. But if those instances are to a point where it's creating a trauma infused workplace, then the company is absolutely at fault for not protecting people, for allowing that environment to persist. So there's still going to be those same feelings of betrayal and of you know, broken.
[COBY]:And I think part of what makes kind of a trauma infused workplaces from almost like different from like a traumatic workplace is usually a traumatic workplace is something where there's a consistent persistent type of ideally little T trauma that's kind of like defines it where in trauma infused I think it's more common. There's lots of little smaller pockets or there's lots of little examples of different types of traumatic events like bullying and then there's like know job losses and then there's like a toxic boss and then there'and there's people that have brought like you traumatic habits or traumatic responses from past jobs. And it's a very complicated web and that's a pretty normal thing for most workplaces because like, I mean there's just lookuck. We'not especially in the world right now.
[JAMES]:But there can even be situations that are outside the business'control like we had a client that their site ah, burned to the ground and that was a very traumatic event for the staff. And that trauma of going through that like the loss of you know, their workspace and their, their memorabilia and you know, pictures of they were in the.
[COBY]:Building when it caught on a fire. So just the like the threat of death is actually big T trauma. So there's lots of going on too. Right. But it's also, yeah, I mean actually where this question comes from. I think it's probably will help a little bit too. So we actually had a client who had asked us this question almost verbatim. How do you fix our culture and our trauma this traumatic trauma infused workplace? And it was really because they had staff that had a combination of. Some of them had come from other places where they were under just like a horrible micromanager boss who was also kind of aggressive towards them and other ones, you know, had some, there were some other issues around kind of the work that they did with their customers that kind of caused some real backlash. And again and the orientation itself wasn't overly well view at times. And then they had a new leader kind of come in. Everything kind of changed. So lots of different complicated stuff and.
[JAMES]:Poorly managed change that left people feeling unsupported and. Yeah, yeah.
[COBY]:And this is kind of the thing too is that when it comes down to the idea of how do you deal with performance issues when the reason why they're underperforming isn't about their motivation, it isn't about their efforts, is that they are, they have like a traumatic response to, you know, the way things are handled. Things trigger certain kind of like, like reactions a lot. And so how do you kind of navigate it when this person's traumatic trigger is kind of caused by the other person's coping mechanisms. And so just a lot of the complicated nature of it and I mean all that really kind of comes down to the fact that it really is kind of the core of how to battle traumatic or trauma infused workplaces was with psychological safety. And it's a hard thing to do. It's not a drop it in, take a weekend course. Here are some simple, you know, here's the five quick trips to you. That stuff doesn't work. It's about methodical, strategic, like really diligent efforts to build psychological safety, to build confidence in the organization, to alleviate any institutional betrayal and ideally solve any common organizational problems, that might actually be triggering the like trauma on its own. But a lot of it is you have to make people feel safe to speak up and share when they feel overwhelmed, when they are not responding. Two things that they don't have to hide stuff that they feel seen and heard and that they belong.
[JAMES]:I want to be clear that there's a, we're talking a lot about the responsibilities of the company and what you're as the leaders, what your responsibilities are. There are responsibilities that the employees have as well. and it's something that's not always talked about. I mean the nature of the trauma is going to heavily influence how you respond and your approach to it. But in a situation where we're dealing with small t trauma, where the company is going through the efforts to rebuild trust and working to giving people this time and the space that they need, being understanding and showing compassion and showing patients and they're doing all of these things, what happens when somebody does not live up to their expectations? Right. And I think this is where I often go back to performance management because in a strong performance management process there, there should definitely be regular check ins and ideally with some level of frequency. So I like a kind of a bi weekly check in with team members, where we're, it's an informal conversation but we're making sure that things are still on track because though the expectations still need to be communicated to the staff that you know, here's the recognition of what's happened is important and giving people the time and space that they need to work through some of that trauma is essential. But we also need to recognize that there's still operational requirements that need to be met. And it's the balancing of operational requirements with ensuring that we are doing as much as we can to support the people who help us achieve Those operational requirements, treating them like human beings and making sure that they're supported. So I would. If you're looking for. Okay, well what as I manager do I actually do with my team? I think there needs to be recognition and acknowledgement of past traumatic. Whatever the events are that have caused the small T trauma. I think there needs to be clear expectations around what you as the manager leader or what the company is doing to help rebuild trust or whatever that needs to be rebuilt, that needs to be laid out and communicated with people. But there also needs to be a expectation that this is not all on like there is personal responsibility involved as well. And while we are going to do everything that we can, you know, to help people come along and you know, work alongside people to bring them along, not drag them kicking and screaming, that personal responsibility piece, the those one on one conversations that you should be having on a regular basis anyways is an ideal place to be able to do that because then you can start to manage expectations and manage and m. Monitor the progress and reinforce with people of great how are it's showing compassion on a personal level as the manager, making sure that they understand what supports they have access to what you're doing to support them and also helping them to build resiliency.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I think it is really good to not to overlook the agency that employees have for their own resolution of trauma. Because this is one thing that we've talked about this with clients in the past who are dealing with different types of issues that stem from more mental health issues and stuff like that. In that I've said this a number of times with clients to say there's a big difference between having employees who have mental health issues and having employees who have unmanaged mental health issues.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:So the idea is that the employee is dealing with trauma and if they're not taking agency on, they need to put the work in to help kind of fix their responses, fix their culture. They need to be supported, they need to have a lot of patients like I said, and empathy to kind of work through it. But if they're not working through it, if they're letting it become unmanaged, then at some point it's an effort thing and they're not meeting their expectations, they're not meeting the set of parameters for their job, they're not meeting performance systems because they're choosing not to. And that is something that needs to be kind of clear too is that the company can only do so much and they can only provide the right conditions and support. But a lot of the work also has to be done on the employees that they have to help manage their responses. And if they have an unmanaged traumatic response and they're not putting effort into it, that is something that is grounds for eventual dismissal if they don't change that.
[JAMES]:Really what we're talking about is change management process in the context of, small T trauma infused workplaces. Right. We need to go through those proper change management steps where we're focused on the human being of making sure that we're communicating early, that we're generating by and that we're changing thoughts, changing actions, changing, you know, everything. All the elements that we need to ensure that we are bringing people along eventually. We need to change as we are, kind of nearing the end of the change. We need to change how success is measured. And if people are not willing to change with us.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:That's a choice that they make.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:We have a responsibility as leaders, as managers, as businesses to help people take advantage of the opportunities to change and tell them how these changes are going to be better in the long term.
[COBY]:That's good.
[JAMES]:All right, you want to, move on to the next question.
[COBY]:Sounds good.
[JAMES]:All right, so I'll ask you, Coby, what advice would you give to someone going through a messy change, but does not have any impact or influence over the change itself?
[COBY]:Yeah, that is a good question because I mean, like you just said, there's not a lot of, incidents where change needs to be properly managed, whether that's small individual change or whether it's organizational or whatever. Yeah. so if your company is going through change and you as an employee have no authority, no real influence or impact on how the change is handled and the change is not being handled well, what do you do? I think most people can relate to that question, but I think there is a few things that people could do to, would help. And I think that what I want to do first is I want to refer back to episode we did probably two or three episodes ago. We talked about managing up. So I'll put the, episode number in our show notes. But I mean the idea around managing up is about have you can't control how your boss manages you, but you can control how you react to their management. And we suggested a few things that would help you provide some stability and kind of the, you know, the environment of uncertainty. Right. and one of the things that we talked about was assertive communication. Right. So if you are in A situation where change is not being managed well, then you need to be able to kind of speak to those that are above you, that have more influence than you have on what you need. And doing things like, like empathic assertion is a, tactic for sur communication where you can say, I understand you. This is the situation, you're going through this, but this is what I need of you. So you show empathy, then you assert yourself. Those types of strategies can be helpful, to kind of open up the communication and provide some firmness while still acknowledging the reality around you. And that may be one good place to start.
[JAMES]:I think there's a lot of contextual pieces to this question as well. Because if you can't manage up, if you have a toxic boss, and it really depends on how many layers or levels there are between you and the people who actually have influence over the change. So if you're in a large corporate structure, I mean if you work for a large retail grocery chain and you work at the ah, store level and the changes being handled at head office, you probably don't have any real influence or ability to speak into the change, by the nature of how distant and how uncommunicative it would be to actually talk with those people. But I think the idea of managing up is still relevant in that situation of working with your store manager. I mean, part of this really depends on your own comfort in being assertive. It does require a lot of personal courage to be able to do this depending on the situation you're in. I mean I can remember going through pretty significant organizational change in a previous job. And I am fairly comfortable challenging my managers and bosses. So for me it was not unrealistic for me to go to them and say, hey, people are scared. They don't know what's going on. There's no communication. If you want to use me to disseminate information for you, I'm happy to do that because I figured it was something that I could do that would help. Whether or not they take it up and take you up on it is really up to them. But it's if you are comfortable and confident and have that relationship, to be able to do that. Acting as an advocate for others is one avenue that you can use to at least try to dispel maybe some of the concerns around, the unmanaged change or the change that you don't have that you feel isn't going well, that is, just permeating through the entire organization.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I think that is good advice to again try to find a way that you can help others. But I think that's going to be the core of our answer to this question is if you can't control those, the change itself all you can really do is influence those around you. Now you can look after those within your proximity. You could help be part of the solution to those if there are people below you or around you to support them. But also you might be able to provide a bit of support and a bit of assertiveness or a bit of kind of again like you kind of said some actions to kind of help improve the situation to those above you and hope that they will do the same. Yes, because the thing about levels is it its really hard to jump from like the bottom level thats like 10 steps down from the very top. You can't jump that. But if you can help level up the person above you and then they can level the person above them eventually you can climb the ladder. People have to want to, you have to have to model good so of reliable effective leadership I guess is really kind of what it is. but thats really the kind of thing that you can do. Now again not everyone might be able to take on the role of hey Ill be like an employee liaison to the leadership and help communicate information if thats whats needed.
[JAMES]:But that may not even be welcomed in certain in different environments. So it contextual definitely needs to rule.
[COBY]:Here and you listening, you know you're in workplace, you know your role, you know your environment well enough to know what will work for you. But I think ultimately I guess what the general advice probably that's probably best is what can you control? And I mean if you know the kind of impact that you can have on those that are either under you or that you're responsible for or those around you, that's probably the best impact that you could have. If you have the luxury of having a good relationship with a person above you, your boss, supervisor or whatever it is and you could support them to support up that's great. That's you not always the case but if you can at least help those that you're responsible for and model good taking care of those around you, habits that hopefully others will take on, you can start to maybe build a bit of a some momentum from the bottom up of we're trying to take care of each other, we're trying to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And again depending on the change it could be a really Good change. This is not being handled well. And if that's the case, then it's a matter of just kind of getting through the tough times, being there for each other, almost like galvanized by conflict or galvanized by difficult situations, and kind of working through it together. If it's a really negative change and it's being panled badly, that almost jumps back into the trauma infused workplaces to talk to. but it's one of those situations where all you can really do is focus on what you can control and do your best to provide the support that you can within the context of what you can control.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I think that's really important because as much as I would like to be able to control other people, it doesn't work that way. We can only really control what we do, and how we respond to others. but I think it's really important if you are a manager or a supervisor, in this situation where the change is being dictated and you don't have control over necessarily how the change is being rolled out, you still have a responsibility to your team, to try focus on what you can do, focus on what you can control and make sure that your team has everything from you that they possibly need. You know, clear, open communication. But I mean, Kobeu touched on something that I think is an important opportunity as well. Relationships can be forged through shared adversity.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:So not that I would necessarily intentionally try to play a negative experience like this, to create relationships, but recognize that when people go through these types of very challenging things together, if you stand with them, if you stand with your team, beside them whenever possible, in front of them to protect them from the garbage that rolls downhill. That is a really important, that can be a really big boost to the relationships that you develop with your teams and how things, get managed post change too.
[COBY]:Yeah, no, and that is really, really good advice. I mean, part of any kind of situation that you're in is figuring out, okay, I can't control the situation itself, but how can I find good within it? Right. And if you can find good within kind of a chaotic change by, you know, by forming stronger bonds with those around you, that's still, that's still kind of a net positive.
[JAMES]:But I mean, be careful if in villainizing the higher ups.
[COBY]:Yes. How you do it, you don't want to turn into an opportunist, and creating your own camps. We've seen that happen too. Right.
[JAMES]:You villainize the way things are handled or you Know, criticize the impact that the change is having. Don't criticize those who are leading the change, because that rarely works out in your favor.
[COBY]:Oh, that never ends well at all. But I do think too that, I mean, we've. It's funny, we've been involved in different types of organizational change, and we've kind of led it. We've kind of been, responsible kind of for parts of it. We've worked around it when it's happening. and I remember one thing that kind of stands out in my mind is when we were working around a big organizational change, this huge organizational kindount, kind of, of like acquisition, and it was poorly handled. And one thing that was admirable because again, we weren't affected by it because we had a small role to play as an outside party being involved in it. but I mean, seeing the impact it had on the people that we work with every day was difficult. And our advice on how to resolve things wasn't always welcome. So we kind of kept it to ourselves. But we saw some pretty cool personal, individual leadership from some people. The comms person is a great example. They had this excellent director of communications who was sidelined when they really should have been frontline. but they took it upon themselves. Okay, you know what? My job is to make sure that everybody internally andernally knows what's going on. So I'm gonna lead my team and we're going to do what's right. Not necessarily what is. Just the we'll do what we're told, but we'll do what we're told. Plus, like, they didn't just do the bare minimum. They spen the extra time trying to say, we know that communication is so essential to this process that we don't want to just shirk our responsibilities.
[JAMES]:If those leading the change aren't going to be responsible for communicating, somebody has to. And it was within the responsibility of this person's, role to mobilize their team to do exactly that. And that type of leadership, not leadership because of position, but leadership because of passion, was really evident and got the staff who were finally able to be in the know or have some level of clarity, appreciated that.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, and that's what we mean by focus on what you can control and look after those around you. And that was really kind of the two things that they did made. And they were a bright light in a really heavy storm. And eventually those that were for the change were, oh, these were good things. I'm glad that we, I'm glad we decided to do it. So yeah, I mean but well, having.
[JAMES]:People take credit for other people's work is not something that we can control.
[COBY]:Noe but everyone knew who the hero in the story was and it actually created a much stronger bonds with lot the people around them once they got through that. So again, I think the best advice you can be is going to manage up focus on what you can control and look out for those around you is really the best advice if you're going through a messy change.
[JAMES]:Cool.
[COBY]:All right, so let's move on to the last question I'll ask this one of you. Okay. How do you fix a bad hire after hiring or promoting them? Really?
[JAMES]:depends on why they are a bad hire. because people can be terrible at their job for so many different reasons. Yeah, that was unnecessary but accurate though. But I mean really though when we're talking about a bad. A bad bad is subjective. So why, what causes them to be bad? If it's a performance issue then I've got a very straightforward process that we can work through systematically to support the person and expectations in put supports around them, training and development opportunities, leadership coaching. If that's like there's lots that we can do. If it's merely that they it's a performance based issue. If they are. If you find out after you hire them that they are a terrible fit, that's a different issue. So I think the first thing we need to actually figure out is what's driving the why are they a bad fit for this job or why are they classified as a bad hire? sorry, what was the actual question? Because I got focused just on bad hire.
[COBY]:How do you fix a bad hire after hiring or promoting them?
[JAMES]:Okay, so promotion. Let, let's look at it through two different lenses. The external person coming in, being hired into a role who doesn't work out and the internal person being promoted, m who doesn't work out for a role. So if it's external and it's performance based, then again I would go through our normal performance management processes. I would have communicated with them what the expectations are, how they're failing to meet those expectations. Again, you should be having some sort of regular communication with people through performance management. Even just informal check ins are part of that performance management process. Put clear supports in place that's going to help them get there. If they don't get there, then we're into discipline and termination. right. We're just we are following our established policies and procedures. If it's an external hire who comes in, who is a. We find out after the fact that they're a toxic personality. Well, that's what proationary periods are for. I would remove them from the organization. well, give them an opportunity to change with a very tight timeline and expectations for what we expect to change and what's going to happen to their employment if they choose not to change. I would always frame it from this is your choice. this is what we expect of you. This is where the behaviors that we see that are problematic. You have a choice, right now, over the next two weeks, three weeks to show improvement. We will meet again in two weeks, three weeks to measure results. If that person hasn't been made satisfactory improvements, they're out. Simple, clean. Use the supports and structures and systems that you have in place. So I think those two situations are fairly clear in my mind. The internal promotion piece makes it a little bit more nuanced because especially if it's a promotion, I mean, I guess if it's internal, it's going to be promotion. You know, they're either. It's a lateral move into a position that I guess they weren't actually qualified for. I mean if it's a lateral, it could still be a personality type of thing. But let's focus on the performance piece first and foremost. one thing that we've helped clients develop as part of internal mobility plans or internal succession planning, depending on what type of language that you want to use, is the idea of providing c condiments to people. the ability for people internally to move into a role in a, not kind of in a temporary basis. essentially they hold on their original job that they were hired into is held and protected while they are doing this job. And then you're backfilling the role that, that they left. it gives them an opportunity, if things don't work out, to actually go back to the job that they originally had. it can create some messiness in terms of scheduling and bumping and these types of things. But it also provides people with a safe way of stepping forward of saying, you know what, I want to go after this new opportunity. because I know that it's a step towards my career goal without that fear of, well, if it doesn't work out then I lose my employment entirely. They can always go back to the role that they were in. so performance based, we follow the same typical, procedures of making sure that we are clearly articulating what the expectations are. We're doing our regular check ins with some level of frequency. We are when we are identifying deficits we are identifying to that person where the problems lie and putting the supports and stuff in place to make sure that they can achieve that. If they aren't able to achieve that then we move into again if performances regularly being dropping or not meeting our expectations we move into performance or discipline and termination.
[COBY]:Yeah, I mean and that's pretty good explanation of kind of the different sides. And I mean I really think to summarize what you're saying that if it's performance thing there are structure frameworks.
[JAMES]:We should have those structures already developed.
[COBY]:Exactly. And if you don't it's of it's not a great time to make them. But at least you got motivation to make them. Zoom. Might as well make them right. Mean you're right. A good performance management system with checks and balances and clear articulated KPIs and all other kind of stuff is very helpful. having things like wraparound supports or training development also baked into that. So if there's areas of weaknesses or people not meeting certain milestones then it triggers kind of like a process to support them, not just a process to punish them. But then you're right things like subconinen things like there are systems in place that can allow for are well established. They're a little bit messier than just a clean one more work. Yeah. Once well they require more investment upfront to build a system then that system pays dividends after it's in 100%. Yeah. I think though that if it's a personality thing or if it's an attitude thing, I think that is really when we should looking at things like coaching and mentoring. If it's a matter of maybe'that they don't blend with the team well or maybe it s that they don't have the right temperament or the right attitude for the job itself. Do they still want the job with those two things? Because that's something that they may be like. I. Well it's here I'm not built for it. So if I can go back because it'a comment great. If I can't or if I don't want to, I want to get good at this then what can actually help? Maybe things like employability skills training around things like emotional intelligence or kind of more of an adaptive management style or whatever it is can be again help. Training, support, coaching, mentoring, those can be Very practical interventions to resolve attitude or personality conflicts, provided that the company really wants to have a system in place to help people achieve and be successful. Even though we know most businesses don't have any kind of sports in place for promotions, that kind of stuff like that, but even a little bit to kind of help people kind move along. So it's not pass or fail. It. It's, you know, it's incremental improvements that can make a huge difference in attitude or. Sorry, the attitude of the organization around incremental improvements can be huge on its own.
[JAMES]:Well, Yeah, I agree 100% and I think with internal, especially with internal promotions, if it's. If you have an employee who's been with you for a while and they've shown enough, know positive, experiences, work ethic quality, of work to earn a promotion and then suddenly it's a personality issue. I would say 98% of the time it's probably because they're unconfident in their ability to do the new job right when people are. Because we, we've talked about, you know, why people get promoted, on this podcast many times before. You know, oftentimes it's because they, you know, you get promoted because you've done really well in a previous role and it's a reward for good service. Eventually we get promoted in, away from our bench strength into a role where we are no longer as confident and competent in what we're doing. When people are not confident in their roles, they tend to. This is where we often see things like micromanagement happening. This is where we often see personality problems crop up out of nowhere with employees who have been wonderful for years. Right. So if you are have a quote unquote bad hire from an internal promotion, it's probably a confidence issue, confidence and competence issue. And Kobe's. You're right. It's leadership like invest in the person. If we saw something in this person enough that we wanted to promote them and help them achieve their career aspirations with us, then we should be willing to also look at how can we continue to support their development.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:It's a relatively inexpensive intervention that can pay huge dividends in terms of not only that individual person's, career aspirations with you, but every person that they come in contact with. It will improve the way that team functions. That will improve so many other areas that, that the leadership development or coaching aspect should not be underestimated.
[COBY]:No, no. That's the advice. All right. I think that pretty much summarizes though, that Question. So I think I might just do a bit of a wrap up.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I got pretty ranty on that one. Ye.
[COBY]:Ah, that's yourpet. It's your perpetraual state, Randy. okay, so let's start off by just doing a quick recap, of the first question. So first question was how do you fix a culture in a trauma infused workplace? And we defined trauma infused workplaces as a workplace filled with employees living with traumatic responses at past workplace events, things like badly handled change, bullying, fear of losing their job, et cetera. It's important to realize that empathy, patience and compassion are really gonna be your like, three biggest assets when it comes to these kind of environments. And we always say that the best way to help people through managing their own trauma is by building a psychologically safe environment and making sure that they feel heard, seen, they connected so that they can advocate for themselves, that they can feel confident, that they can be able to kind of, move forward in this journey of dealing with these traumatic responses in a way that will help them and the organization as a whole. Our next question was, what advice would you give to someone who's going through a messy change but doesn't have the impact of change? Well, largely, it's really, we kind of said it kind of boils down to two things. Focus on what you can control and take care of those around you. Now, there are some tactics, things like, things like the ideas we talked about in our episode about managing up, things like assertive communication, managing expectations. But ultimately it's really about. So if you have ability to have impact, have that impact and look after those that you can. And ideally that's something that will be, modeling that will help others adopt that approach and become part of the solution. And ideally, hopefully that idea will spread. The last question is, how do I fix a bad hire after, being hired or being promoted, largely, James is right. If it's a performance thing, there are structures and frameworks that can make a big difference. There are tools that you should already have in place. But if you don't, now is a great time.
[JAMES]:Call us.
[COBY]:Now is a great time to invest, in those. If it'more of a personality thing, more of an experience thing. Coaching, mentoring, helping them find the confidence and the skills in order to kind of be successful in their new role is really your responsibility as an organization. If you feel that this person is worth investing in by being promoted, then actually fully invest in them to make them successful and don'throw them to the wolves, Al right. So that about does it for us. For a full archive with the podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman.3ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
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