How To Handle People Showing Up Late To Work

I'd love to share a little bit of wisdom, about what you can do with team members who are showing up late or genuinely dropping their standards, and how you as the leader can engage with them.

It’s about asking some curious questions, and helping them to realize within themselves, what it is that they need to do to show for themselves.

Remember that their low standards are not about you but about them and their development. As a result of this, they will want to be a better person and a better team member.

So, let's talk about curious questioning skills. These are skills that I've learned as a coach, and in my last three years of training. The profound awareness that I have now about how to ask more curious questions, has really helped me in my life to continue to develop the people around me and help them to step into their true potential.

1) So what are curious questioning skills? The first one is to figure out what is the actual challenge here?

A lot of people have so much going on in their minds that they don't know, what specifically is the challenge.

2) Ask them what they would want to be what would be the ideal situation? How would you like to be instead? This is finding out what their outcomes are.

3) Asking curious questions that create a bridge from where they are today with the behaviour and where they want to be in the future.

One of the benefits of being able to ask questions, rather than giving solutions is that you're meeting your team member where they are at. We are all on a journey. What we know as leaders is that everybody is they're doing the best they can with the tools currently available to them otherwise they wouldn’t be like this. We're not seeing their situation through our lens. You as the leader, you've already taken a massive growth leap within yourself and your own development, because you chose to open up a business.

So you want to help them to come up with solutions to their own challenges in their own situation so that they can put one foot in front of the other and keep on developing. The other part of this is making sure that you create a connection with that person if you are the leader, instead of giving solutions all the time. Take time to care.

I had a situation with a client of mine who didn't show up for a coaching session one time. And she texted me five minutes before saying “I won't be able to make it.” So when we met the next time I said to her “What went on last time? How come you had to cancel last minute?” And she said, “Oh, you know, the kids and traffic.” And I just stayed super curious. I really wanted to just understand on a deeper level what her thinking was. I then discovered that she puts her kids in front of her own needs and that is affecting her development. We then had a coaching session around this. So it was a beautiful way for me to stay open and curious and use questions to help her gain that awareness.

DON’T USE WHY QUESTIONS!

We have a psychological barrier that goes up when we are in a vulnerable situation with someone, we have a natural defence mechanism within us when we feel uncomfortable. The barrier goes up when you ask the question starting with Why? “Why are you late?” is very accusing. So start with what? Or how? Or who. Try asking “How did that situation play out?” Rather than or “What was it about being late, that was a challenge?”

1) Finding the underlying problem by asking “How specifically is a challenge for you?”

And this will help you to get really specific on not just the problem, but the emotion behind it and about where they place the responsibility. Remember that the problem is never the problem but it’s about HOW THEY FEEL about the problem. Understanding how they are affected by the challenge, is going to help you to be able to change their thinking. So for example, if they are late, and then they feel so bad about being late and stay in a funk. They might then blame themselves even if it was things outside of their control. And to do this, you want to get really specific. And the question I always ask is, “How specifically, is it a challenge for you?”- Wait for that reply and ask again the same question again to narrow down the thinking and get a good understanding of where they are coming from. Then we can deal with the real underlying challenge, rather than just the surface-level challenge that keeps on cropping up over and over again, we can help the team members to improve the thinking that created the challenge in the first place.

2) Finding out where they would like to be. So using questions like, in an ideal situation, how would you like to be? Or what will it give you when you arrive on time new time? Or in six months’ time, if you arrive on time, every day? What will that mean for you in this position? Your family? Your workmates?

That's really important because you're helping them to understand what the consequence is of their behaviour and how else it can be. And when you're helping them see a future version of themselves, that is showing up responsibly on time that is honouring themselves, you create emotion. You help the team members to be able to visualize and connect with that version of themselves.

3) Asking ‘Bridge questions”

What we've done is we've found out the specific challenge. We've talked about where they want to go. Now you want to use questions to bridge the gap. For example, one of my favourite questions is, what do you need to let go of to get to where you want to go? Or what's one thing that you could do differently to get from A to B? Or what do you need to believe about yourself to be able to take action to get to B?

And remember that these are not just grand moments when someone has a big realization bomb that goes off. You're just helping them see life slightly differently. The Japanese call this Cani, (Constant and never-ending improvement). Making sure that you help them see that just small improvements make a really big difference. And that is our job as business owners and leaders to help people continually show up for themselves. You don't want to give them a huge goal because otherwise, it's too unattainable. Just small little things in their development journey that are going to make a big difference to them, and as a result, they will feel great and it will make a big difference to your business.