[MUSIC] Let's see how these ten guidelines apply to the dilemma we started this lesson with. So you've had a complaint about an employee who's selling things out of her desk and people are feeling pressured and there's a lot of traffic through the office. How do the 10 guidelines apply? Well first, don't take it personally. There may be even direct or implicit criticism of the way you're running the office in this. It's not about you. It's about the office, and it's about establishing and maintaining an appropriate professional environment. So don't take it personally and don't treat it as personal criticism of you, even if it feels that way. Don't let it show you take it personally. You're responsible for the good of the whole here, and so you'll take this information in and act upon it. Never act on only one side of the story, and remember that nobody knows what everybody knows. So once you've heard this complaint, it's time for you to collect other information. You need to talk to the employee herself, and it would be worthwhile thinking about some of the other factual records that might have information. How's her productivity and performance? Do you have logs that show who comes and goes from this floor or this building? Is there extra traffic, are extra people coming through perhaps related to her side business and not related to your company's business? Is there evidence that it's affecting the productivity of other people? You may want to find out if other people are feeling pressured to purchase. And you want to be a little careful about how you go about that because you could start the gossip line pretty quickly by going around and saying so, are you having a problem with this too? Because again, as the authority figure, things that you say will carry a much greater weight than you expect. Which feeds into guideline four, when in doubt, leave it out. Do not provide commentary. Do not say things like, yeah, it's always made me uncomfortable too. Authority amplifies everything you say and anything you say in this circumstance could be carried back and retailed and it may grow in the process. So pretty soon, you were saying, I'm going to fire her or something. It may get out of control, so watch what you say. When in doubt, leave it out. Remember, never attribute to malice that which incompetence may explain. Your employee may not have been aware or have affected people in ways she didn't intend. If she's otherwise a good employee, you may not have a big problem on your hand, it may be something one simple conversation will take care of. Don't assume going in that there is a problem or isn't a problem, collect some facts, and assume that maybe there were miscommunications involved or information misinterpreted and set out to sort it out and straighten it out because your responsibility is the work place environment, creating and maintaining a professional environment. If there is something interfering with that you may need to act upon it. If it's not the problem may actually be the person who came to you. So keep an open mind, collect facts, don't attribute motives, say what you'll do and do what you say. In this circumstance, it's pretty important to be careful about what you promise. Because you might not promise to get back with what you decided to do. You may want to say quite carefully, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will look into it and do whatever is appropriate. And consider the matter closed then because it's not necessarily the other person's business how you resolve it, so long as the workplace environment is a proper and appropriate for that person's productivity. Remember that in the absence of facts, people make things up, and ignorance breeds pessimism, so be careful about what you promise and don't promise. And also remind people of their roles in the situation. It's not up to other people to decide or to make things up here. Bear that human impulse in mind. Take good notes so that you know exactly what's being complained of, so that you don't have a tendency to overlook them or flinch or look away. Or remember it as a bigger problem than was actually reported. So keep good notes. This is not a situation where there's likely much fear involved unless you just have a fear of confrontation and saying hard things to people. So that probably isn't an issue. And this is also probably not a problem that requires much formal process. In the worst case, the kind of formal process this might involve is a letter of expectation. If you've had problems with this employee before you might be going to the next level of progressive discipline. The guidelines though, it's worth stepping through each one each time, because sometimes the biggest problems come imbedded in little tiny things. So if you do, pay attention as you go through and check the guidelines. It will help you come to an appropriate professional principled even handed outcome. And if in the course of the process, you discover something more serious, you were checking something and you reveal some other inconsistency or anomaly, then you go back to the guidelines all over again, and double check that you're following them. If you follow the guidelines when you're dealing with complaints and problems, it'll keep you out a lot of trouble. [MUSIC] [SOUND]
