Ep 249: What to Say When You Need to Hold Someone Accountable

Managers know when a performance conversation is overdue. What stops them is not knowing what to say, or worrying the conversation will go sideways. In this free workshop, Humanergy coach Jim Marshall shares two practical tools: the WXYZ framework for giving specific, grounded feedback without triggering defensiveness, and Feed Need Seed Weed, a four-part structure for organizing accountability conversations from recognition through correction. If you're sitting on a conversation you've been delaying, this one's for you.

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Transcript

Mimi (00:10) Hey everybody, I'm Mimi with Humanergy, and this is another of our free workshop series. This is Jim Marshall with "Holding People Accountable." If you're interested in joining us for any of our free workshops, you can find the link on our website under the free workshops page at humanergy.com. Enjoy.

Jim Marshall (00:31) Greetings, everyone.

We're here to talk about holding people accountable. There's a lot that can be said about the topic. And I think if you're anything like me, or some of the leaders I've worked with, the responses can vary quite a bit. You could even look in the chat right now and see them. But it can be pretty scary.

Whether you're the one who has to go in and do the work of holding someone accountable or delivering feedback, or whether you're on the receiving end, sometimes just hearing the words raises discomfort or anxiety. By the time we're done here, I'm hoping you've got some thoughts and some tools that are going to help make that easier. And I'm also hoping you walk away genuinely inspired to choose to wade into those conversations, because they're crucial and important. I believe they're really an opportunity for us, for the people we work with, and for our organizations to get better.

If you look at the chat, some of the reasons people gave for not wanting to step in: "they seem overloaded," "the expectations weren't clear to begin with," "it just makes me uncomfortable," "I don't think they're going to like me," "I think it's going to lead to a conflict." There's a lot that causes us to delay. So let's jump into two thoughts and two tools.

Thought One: People love to learn and grow.

That doesn't mean I can walk up to someone and say, "You know what your problem is," and launch into it. But it does mean that if I'm resting on that foundation, when I walk into a conversation and help someone think about what they did and how they might do it better, it can lead to a positive outcome. The person can actually learn something, grow from it, and get a good feeling from it. For most of us, our engagement and our desire to stay in an organization is connected to our sense of learning, growth, and progress being made. And I would argue our relationships can get stronger through it.

One key ingredient people need in order to respond openly and receptively is knowing your intent. They have to know you have their best interest at heart. On a gut, intuitive level, people are reading that. They have to feel, "This person's got my back. They're doing this because they want to help me." And they have to feel like it's a safe environment. That's the key word: safe.

When it feels safe, they lean into learning and growing. When it doesn't feel safe, when they're wondering whether this is going on their performance review or going to have financial consequences, they go into self-protection mode. But if it's early, and there's a real opportunity to learn and grow, and they trust that you have their best interest at heart, most people are going to lean in.

Thought Two: If it's early, it's easier to deal with. If it's late, it gets messy.

We talk about the slippery slope. Picture a horizontal continuum from "early" on the left to "late" on the right. Then a vertical continuum from "simple and easy" at the top to "hard and complex" at the bottom. Performance situations start in the upper left, in the green zone. If we deal with them early, they tend to be manageable and doable. The longer we wait, for whatever reason, the further we slide down that slope. It gets messy, tangled, emotional, and that much harder to bring to a productive resolution.

So hopefully those two thoughts have convinced you: people love to learn and grow, and if it's early, it's easier to deal with. We want to delay less. Which brings us to the tools.

Tool One: WXYZ

In situation W, when you do X, it impacts me in Y ways, and I would prefer Z.

There's a lot of power in those four components. A quick note: I first learned it as "I feel Y" instead of "it impacts me in Y ways." If that version is easier to remember, use that. In a professional context, some people aren't as comfortable with "I feel," so "it impacts me" or "it impacts our team" or "it impacts our organization" can work better.

What makes W and X so powerful is that they avoid what I call the generalization problem. Say someone gave a presentation and when questions came in, their body language was all wrong. They were scoffing, rolling their eyes, interrupting people before they could finish. You could tell they were uncomfortable or defensive. The most natural thing is to label it: "They're not very collaborative," or "They're not very open to feedback."

Here's the problem. When you go to someone and say, "You're not very collaborative," the most natural response is, "What? When? I don't understand. My intent is to be open." They may not even be aware of the specific moment. Generalization doesn't help you have a good feedback conversation, and it doesn't help you hold someone accountable.

WXYZ fixes that. "In situation W, when you do X, it impacts me or us in Y ways, and I would prefer Z." The Y component is "I language," not "you language." It owns the impact rather than indicting the person. And Z gives the other person somewhere to go. You're proposing a solution. They can say yes, or they can propose something different. Now you're in a dialogue about what you're going to do to address the situation.

Tool Two: Feed, Need, Seed, Weed

This is a four-part framework for a feedback or accountability conversation. You might use all four components in a single conversation, or use the framework to prep and organize your thoughts beforehand. You might also pick one or two components that fit a specific situation. There are a lot of ways to work with it.

The framework uses a lawn care metaphor. A groundskeeper feeds and fertilizes the lawn, seeds it, and weeds it. A leader managing performance does the same.

Feed: Recognize and affirm good performance. Feed the person and feed the specific behaviors you want to see repeated.

Need: This is not "what you need to do differently." It's a picture of excellent performance. Think of a baseball coach watching a batter. The coach has a clear picture in their mind of ideal batting technique. They observe what the player actually does and compare it to the ideal. Need is where we say, "This is what great performance looks like in this situation. This is where we need you to be." It creates a shared understanding of what excellent looks like.

Seed: Offer ideas for what to do instead. "Here's what you might try."

Weed: Pull out whatever limiting practice we want to leave behind.

So Feed, Need, Seed, and Weed together are about behavior, about what someone did and what we'd like to see going forward. You can use the graphic as a guide: the gray line is where performance actually is, the green Feed is recognizing what went well, the Need establishes what great would look like, Seed fills the gap between current and ideal, and Weed is what we're removing from the equation.

One implication I want to leave you with: most leaders I've worked with, when I ask them about their habit around feeding great performance, they realize it's not where they want it to be. When I was working in an organization, I'd think all the time, "Wow, that was really impressive." And then I realized I was thinking it but not saying it. If you're thinking about creating the right environment for people to learn and grow, start by asking yourself: how disciplined, how regular, how habitual am I about feeding the behaviors I want to see repeated?

So to wrap up: two thoughts and two tools.

People love to learn and grow. If you're dealing with performance early and having regular conversations about it, it's much easier to manage than if you delay and wait. And WXYZ and Feed Need Seed Weed are two tools the Humanergy team has found genuinely useful, both with clients and in our own situations over the years.