Atelier Thinking

I sometimes wonder whether people dislike HR for the same reason they dislike a good doctor: a competent diagnosis removes the comfort of ambiguity.

Once a problem has a name, there are only two options: address it or accept the consequences of ignoring it. What I have never quite understood is why the first option is so often resisted when the diagnosis is usually something remarkably fixable.

Often, the diagnosis is communication. Unfashionable, perhaps, but true. Whether we label it executive presence, performance management, change management, or a crucial conversation, communication is where outcomes are created or undermined.

Take Max and Mark.

Max was a new executive. Mark was a seasoned contributor who reported to him. Mark had a reputation for solid work. He met deadlines – sometimes narrowly – but he met them, and his work product was consistently good.

“Good” was not Max’s preferred adjective.

Max had not become the company’s youngest executive by settling for good. He also had not gotten there by mastering communication. From the beginning, the relationship was strained. Max believed Mark was capable of more but could not clearly articulate what was missing. Mark sensed dissatisfaction but had no idea what would move him from good to great.

The result was predictable: frustration on both sides.

When they came to me separately, they offered entirely different versions of the same problem.

Max saw someone who had grown too comfortable to push himself further. Mark saw someone too arrogant to appreciate a job well done.

What I saw was not a performance problem. It was an expectations problem.

I asked Max what he needed from Mark.

He looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.

“I need him to do his job.”

“What is his job?”

“Writing reports and creating pitch decks.”

I waited. Nothing more came.

“So, Mark is writing reports and creating pitch decks?”

“Yes.”

“On time?”

“Yes.”

“Are they low quality?”

“No.”

I paused.

“What I hear you saying is that Mark’s job is to write reports and create pitch decks. He is writing reports and creating pitch decks. They are high quality and submitted on time. Have I misunderstood anything?”

“No.”

“Then help me understand your frustration.”

Max blinked. Then he blinked again.

In an act of mercy, I changed course.

“Max, the fact that you cannot explain to me what you need from Mark suggests you may never have explained it to Mark. More importantly, do you know what you need from him?”

What followed surprised me.

Max gave an extraordinarily detailed account of everything making his job more difficult. Almost none of it involved Mark.

What he truly needed was access to a different resource; one the company already had. But as a new executive focused on proving himself, he had never realized he could ask for it.

The problem was never Mark’s performance. The problem was clarity.

Max was holding Mark accountable for frustrations Mark did not control while never articulating what success beyond “good” looked like. Until that gap was made visible, neither of them stood much chance of succeeding.

The breakthrough did not come from better performance management. It came from seeing the situation clearly enough to distinguish the problem people were arguing about from the problem they needed to solve. Once that happened, progress came quickly.

This is the work beneath nearly every workplace conflict and communication gap. First, create clarity about what is happening. Then make the distinction between symptoms and causes. Impact follows naturally from there. Clarity. Distinction. Impact.

Atelier Thinking.