Turning Difficult Into "EASY"
Has your boss ever dropped by your office and given you another high priority project with a short deadline? Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with work that you almost blurted out “you must be crazy” before catching yourself? Rather than responding off-the-cuff in stressful situations like this, you can turn difficult communications into successful conversations by following some EASY steps.
Let’s pretend it’s Tuesday. You have reached (or exceeded) your work capacity and your boss gives you a high visibility assignment that’s due on Thursday. Consider the following potential script or formula to help you communicate your concerns:
E – Explain your feeling or emotion
“I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
A – Assess the situation
“I have two other projects (that you asked me to complete) that are also due on Thursday.”
S – Say what you want to have happen
“I want you to assign this new task to someone else or extend the due dates for those other
projects so that I can deliver high-quality work.”
Y – Get a Yes or No commitment -- Get a commitment
“Will you agree to one of those options?”
If the EASY strategy does not help you reach resolution on the first try, you can repeat the four steps and offer some additional options (e.g., delegate the other assignments, get paid for overtime, or hire a vendor).
If you want to learn additional communication and conflict resolution strategies, contact Kammy Haynes.
Assessing For Development vs. Selection
When choosing to instruments to assess employees for development (evaluating skills so that feedback is provided for the purpose of improvement) or selection (understanding a person’s skills to determine if s/he will receive a job or a promotion) there are some critical issues to consider, including:
- Assessment instruments used for development should focus on skills that can be improved (e.g., coaching and planning), rather than personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness or extroversion) which are stable. Effective selection instruments can assess both.
- You should have data supporting the validity of the selection instruments (e.e., people with better test scores will be better performers)
- Results from development instruments should be explicitly linked to training opportunities so that the person has access to resources to improve where necessary.
- Peer assessments (like 360 feedback) can be useful for development, but they are not a good tool for selection, particularly if the raters are vying for the same position.
For more information about appropriate ways to evaluate people for selection and development, please contact Warren Bobrow.