Conduct Issues
The most successful organizations know that unacceptable behavior can upend workplace security, hurt productivity, and damage an organization’s reputation with its customers, employees, and business partners. If conduct problems involve violence, theft, or serious breaches of safety standards, the organization’s response is usually clear-cut. A no-tolerance policy also makes sense for harassment or hostile disrespect for anyone’s ethnicity, sexuality, gender identification, and religious or political preferences.
Sometimes, however, the seriousness or impact of a conduct incident is ambiguous and there is disagreement about what happened or how to respond. Examples of this are workplace comments that are offensive to one person but not others. In these situations, the organization must make a judgement call as to what’s consistent with its values and what’s best for all concerned.
When a solution to these ambiguous situations is not obvious, an on-site intervention can generate useful information that can help an organization decide how to respond. Interviews with the executives or employees involved can help answer questions like these:
- What can be and should be done about the damage done by the unacceptable conduct?
- Can the executive learn from their mistakes and continue in position?
- What needs to change to minimize the chance that the conduct issue will occur again?
- What organizational factors or other people are involved in the specific incident?
- Are the risks involved with keeping the executive in position tolerable?
- What needs to happen for a climate of workplace security and respect to be restored?
- Are there legal risks that need to be addressed by an attorney?
Performance Issues
While most performance issues are typically addressed during regular reviews and coaching, a dramatic decline in productivity or a seriously bad decision may signal a need for a more immediate response. The interventions we conduct help boards and senior managers address such issues thoughtfully and with respect for all concerned. In situations like this, acting sooner rather than later is recommended before a mistake is repeated or the resulting damage becomes more widespread.
The outcomes of such interventions focus on solutions, which inevitably result in an assessment of whether the executive is unfit for their position and unlikely to respond to rehabilitation, or whether some form of training will help them avoid performance problems in the future. If performance issues are somehow embroiled in a web of other people or circumstances, an intervention can often facilitate a broader look at the problems before any conclusions are reached.
