I was telling myself stories about a support team member who helps me on our largest account, which any error can cost us $25,000 or more.

I have been working with her on her attention to detail since she began 6 months ago - which is a key task for the role she is in. We do allow for a 6 to 12 month training period to give them the chance to learn the ropes before making a decision of staying in the position, moving to another department or parting ways.

I have had more than a few people approach me recently on her performance which reinforced the telling myself stories that she may not the person for the job.

After revisiting my Higher Purpose Statement, one of my main purposes is to help people.  I stepped back and remembered me at age 22 - I was terrible at the details or if you ask our owner probably I was close to the worst ever.   The owner of the company tried different tactics to get me to engage which finally one worked.

Yesterday I spoke to her by stating that I am telling myself stories about her phone use and the potential effect it may have in distracting her from catching errors or making mistakes as well as others on the team seeing her as I do - on the phone.   She was not defensive by the way I framed it up and mentioned the most recent instance was her rescheduling a doctor's appointment. She did mention that if others see her on her phone regularly that could impact the perception of her negatively.

I do realize that she is from another generation and Tony gave me an example of how the new coach of the Arizona Cardinals gives his team a short break during long meetings to let them check their phones since that is what they are used too by the way they grew up having technology by their side 24/7.  My thought is to have her schedule 5 minutes per hour to give her phone time, which I am going to try next week when I return.

I have been speaking to her weekly framing up the SBI (for the specific instances good and bad) and how I feel it is affecting her performance and she does better then regresses.

I am committed to helping her and am hoping that over the next few months she will break through and blow me away as well as her peers who are questioning her performance.  She is doing well to very well in some areas such as getting projects done what needs to be done on time, it's just mastering the detail part of the job.

My goal is to help her succeed and to give her the support, training or attention needs to win.

If anyone has any recommendations on how to work with her I would appreciate any input.

Jim Wilhelm
Director of Sales
Phone: (859) 538-8113
Cell: (513) 702-6554
Email: jwilhelm@galerieusa.com<mailto:jwilhelm@galerieusa.com>
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