After the employee has left the room, the manager’s work is not done. You must
now attend to a good follow-up on the conversation, so that the outcome can be
implemented in a sustainable way. Any individual actions with colleagues or
supervisors need to be coordinated. The HR department must likely be informed.
And the employee should receive a written copy of the minutes. In addition, the
manager must write down the dates of future progress checks in his or her own
calendar.
The success of a conversation is reinforced – or is even made possible to begin
with – only if it is properly evaluated. Here the manager should review the factual
implementation of the goals agreed upon and at the same time perform a psycho-
logical analysis.
The implementation substantially includes the agreed-upon operational activities
and – when appropriate – planning follow-up contacts (continuing discussions,
written confirmations, thank-you letter, etc.). The psychological analysis, which is
unfortunately often left out, deals with the behavior of the conversation partners.
The manager should answer the following questions:
Have I achieved my aims for the conversation?
What was good, what went wrong?
How did I behave? Did I respond to the interests of my conversation partner? Did I
show them appreciation and respect? Did I let them make their point?
How was the atmosphere? How did I influence it?
What impression did the partner probably get from me?
What impression and what new insights did I get from them during the
conversation?
What should I consider for the next talk with this partner? What are their interests,
needs and desires?
What did I learn from this conversation for me? What should I do better in the
future?
How are staff meetings evaluated by experienced professionals? At a committee
meeting of the Academy (see H€ohn et al. 2003) a colleague expressed: “In practice
many employee interviews are very tense, with the employee thinking: ‘Now you
sit down and the big boss tells you what kind of person you are.’ The fact that it is
necessary to institutionalize these interviews just shows how difficult it is for
managers to make real contact in the company.”
Another panelist added: “All of the tools are ultimately about creating a space
where one can say the things that otherwise vanish in the maelstrom of the modern
business world. It is about taking the time to leave the hard facts behind and to talk
about how the cooperation is really working: where there is trouble, what is good
and what is not so good, where are taboos and sacred cows that impede work, or
when it is time to celebrate successes. With a bit of routine, and when trust has
been created, it is perhaps possible to resolve bilateral conflicts within the team in
public.”
In any case, the initiative for an employee interview should come from the
manager. He or she has to create the framework for this kind of leadership
4.2 Tools as Means to an End 209