I laughed out loud when I first heard the term “tattoo regret,” but I know first-hand that, in a human workplace, there’s a threshold moment when a manager realizes he’s got employee regret.  An employee isn’t working out - but it’s not funny, and not easy to fix.

The actual problem might be the employee’s abilities, or it might be a “motivation” issue - or some combination of both – that adds up to a non-fit. The main thing is, the difference between what had been originally hoped for, and what has turned out to be true, can no longer be ignored.

Handling the particular situation well requires one kind of strategy. Insuring that it mostly doesn’t happen again – prevention – is the better approach for the long haul, and hinges on learning the right lessons.

Obviously, a manager begins by managing his or her own feelings.  That’s crucial, especially since everything changes the instant an employee senses you’re no longer thrilled they’re on your team. Be prepared for a range of responses, including denial and aggression, when you broach the problem.

For you, the manager, remember – it’s always about the work and work performance. Your demeanor and use of language should convey that, and only that.

Prevention is the key:

Monitor that “uh oh” feeling, and head toward problems early.

Invest time in mentoring and/or coaching the employee without even hinting that you’re too busy, or that you’re annoyed you have to do it.

Remember, until that threshold (time to terminate) is crossed – it isn’t. Your focus is helping your employee succeed, and first approaching things as problems to be understood and solved – really.

As a purely practical matter, authentically helping an employee succeed increases the likelihood the effort will bear fruit, and decreases the likelihood there will be unreasonable fallout if it doesn’t.

It’s not quite win-win, but it’s a reasonable facsimile. After that, yes, you may have to do what was going to need to be done anyway. But you’ll know you did it the right way.

The thing I like best about coaching is how straightforward it is: either our sessions are useful in a tangible way, or they’re not. If they’re not, the sessions should stop.

Sometimes it’s crystal clear why the sessions are helping. The interactions are stimulating, validating, liberating, or something that feels right. Sometimes it’s less obvious, but it’s usually about external structure and accountability.

Either way, positive actions follow from the sessions – and that’s positive as defined by the client.

Even people who do pretty well working alone can find that having someone to brainstorm with, someone to run things past, someone to think out loud with in a risk-free situation – above all, someone to help move things forward is an invaluable asset.

No longer is it only the rich and famous who have personal assistants, advisors, and personal trainers. Now anyone trying to get from Point A to Point B can hire a trained, credentialed, insured professional.

Study after study keeps showing that people like coaching and their coaches. It’s the complete opposite of being sold a bill of goods, or getting into a dependent relationship with a guru.

Coaches are allies, but not sycophants. They support, but also reflect back honestly how what they’re hearing seems to fit with where things are supposed to be going.

Above all, the process is “positive” not painful, and clients should be looking forward to the meetings.

When I read business articles, I often get the feeling that the work world I see isn‘t quite what those folks are thinking of when they write about the workplace.

The problems they focus on always somehow seem the same – either non-strategic thinking or poor communication, or both. As I read, in my minds eye I see focused people with careers they’re pursuing and mortgages they’re paying, and it’s just that, according to the article, somehow things aren‘t quite coming together. So there‘s all this potential lying there waiting to be unleashed – if only management would get it right.

Enter – stage left – the right person, or the right management idea, or both.

I suppose I might be exaggerating a tad, and maybe it‘s nothing more than the feeling that they’re writing about a parallel universe where virtually everyone’s a professional, or at least has work skills, and knows the basics of adult functioning like shaking hands, returning phone calls, making minimal eye contact, wearing clean clothes, and using deodorant.

At some of the workplaces I’ve been called to consult, nothing could be taken for granted. I remember sitting in a conference room with a freshly promoted young supervisor having a very animated discussion about basic things like the need to give regular feedback, respond early to identified problems, while also addressing her anxiety about doing performance reviews.

We could look out onto a floor full of cubicles, and as we talked, a small squad converged around a particular one. My new supervisor shook her head and said, “We found rotting food in her file drawers, and unopened mail from months ago. “

I’m not suggesting that happens every day, but there are many, many workplaces where the human condition runs rampant in all its multi-faceted richness. “The Office” and “Dilbert” cartoons capture a slice of it, but a lot of what I see isn’t that funny. Pecking order stuff, raw aggression, dysfunction, and pure venality occur with sad regularity across the fruited plain.

Paradoxically, for some people work actually is “home” – a sanctuary, a model of sanity and reliability contrasting with the train wreck back at their own residence.

This can’t simply be dismissed as the other world of low-enders, where most wouldn‘t be caught dead.

Many of us have been there, are there now, or have siblings, cousins, and even children who are in that world.

Helping line managers do their tough jobs has only partly – if ever – been about “thinking outside the box.“

In fact, It‘s mostly about keeping your own concentration, and behaving like the person you aspire to be, despite what‘s happening in front of you, all the while learning, improving, and planning your “strategic” exit when the time is right.

It may sound a bit schmaltzy, but it really has been an honor and a privelege to occasionally be able to help some of those folks.

“When am I guilty of micro-managing? What’s a reasonable way to sort that out?” I’ve been asked that one many times by managers who aren’t sure whether they’re coming on too strong, or not coming on strongly enough. Often what’s going on at the time that question is being posed is that a manager has had some sort of run-in with an employee, the term “micro-managing” has been tossed into the discussion, and the manager isn’t quite sure how to react.

All the textbooks say micro-managing isn’t good – that it impedes employee initiative, generates resentment, and indicates a “controlling” temperament. And, as far as it goes, that’s right. In a healthy environment, with an even distribution of reasonable people, micro-managing is both unnecessary and disrespectful. It can actually reduce employee productivity.

The problem is that in the real world it tends to overlook, or at least sidestep, the issue of accountability. In many workplaces, the key quality that makes someone a manager is his or her willingness to step up and take responsibility for the satisfactory completion of the work product. Since these managers know that their own job performance is being closely monitored, the motivation is huge to be right on top of real and imagined problems – in fact, failure to anticipate and act on “preventable” situations is one of the main reasons managers lose their jobs.

Which is why many have learned from bitter experience to be vigilant, and lock onto potential problems early and often. And that takes us back to the beginning. What’s a reasonable level of checking in and monitoring, when does it morph into micro-managing – and who decides?

If, where you’re working, the workplace culture isn’t essentially healthy, the sad truth is you’re on your own – sorry – which then means it boils down to trial and error, and the hope that a huge “error” doesn’t occur before enough “trials” allow the manager to scope out and adapt to what’s really true – how surreal it gets – when the buck stops in that workplace.