Improve Employee Performance Idea 117 – June 17, 2010: Provide Help On Seeking Clarification

Suppose you have an employee who always reacts to what someone else said without really understanding what was said.  That employee might just need to develop some skills in seeking clarification from others. Help your employee by suggesting that he or she use the following approaches to seek clarification before reacting:

Paraphrase what was said:  This involves using your own words to restate what was said.

Restate what was said: This involves repeating exactly what was said.

Summarize what was said: This involves combining two statements that were said and putting them in your own words.

KEY REMINDER:  To improve employee performance, you have to conduct effective performance discussions, give effective performance feedback, reinforce employee performance, and use effective performance phrases to write effective performance appraisals.
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Barbara Brown, Ph.D. shows managers how to improve employee performance by linking performance to results. She publishes handbooks that contain phrases for discussing performance and for writing appraisals. Dr. Brown also provides training and consulting. Visit www.LinkToResults.net.