This activity is important because as a manager, you will often need to give negative feedback to others in the workplace.

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The goal of this activity is to demonstrate your understanding of principles for effective delivery of negative feedback for performance.

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Read the case and answer the questions that follow.

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Stephen has been frustrated with one of his employees, Zach. Zach has been late to work by about $15$ ?minutes at least once per week for the past two months. He also routinely arrives late to at least half of all scheduled meetings and comes unprepared. Zach $$ s team members regularly complain to Stephen about this behavior. Yet, Zach is one of the top $-$ performing employees. He meets and exceeds all sales goals.

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Stephen holds the following conversation with Zach:

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$(1)$ ?Stephen: I want to talk to you about your performance the last few months. There are a lot of ways you could improve.

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Zach: Like what?

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Stephen: So $,$ ?uh $,$ ?there $$ s a lot you could do to better demonstrate professionalism.

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Zach: I $$ m not sure what you mean.

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$(2)$ ?Stephen: Zach, the way you $$ re approaching getting to work on time and attending meetings shows you $$ re not taking your work seriously.

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Zach: I totally take my work seriously. Today I have meetings all day long with potential customers.

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$(3)$ ?Stephen: Zach, all your team members have come to me with complaints about your ability to work well in teams. It really seems like even with your great individual work, you $$ re not fulfilling your commitments to your team. You $$ re responsible for most of the problems going on in your team.

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Zach: Hey, maybe I come to a meeting late now and then, but so do most of the other team members.

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$(4)$ ?Stephen: Zach, you are consistently late. Each week, you $$ re about $15$ ?minutes late to work at least once per week. You also arrive late to many meetings and often haven $$ t prepared for those meetings. These behaviors are not helping us $.$

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Zach: Well, I guess it $$ s true I $$ m not always on time. But, I $$ m not really convinced it makes that big of a difference.

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Stephen: Yes, of course it makes a difference!

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$(5)$ ?Stephen: Zach, let $$ s talk again in three months. From now on $,$ ?I want you to avoid being late.