Our Expertise
We Specialize in Performance ManagementPerformance Improvement
Dealing with poor performance, marginal employees, disciplinary action, and discharge are the toughest parts of any manager’s job. Traditional discipline systems just don’t work anymore. And in today’s knowledge-worker economy, a more sophisticated and effective approach is necessary. We’ve got the answers.
America’s archaic “progressive discipline” system was created 70 years ago in response to union demands. It is the last remaining vestige of adversarial 1930’s “labor versus management” thinking in the modern organization. Its focus on punishment doesn’t encourage performance improvement–only resentment and hostility. Using warnings and reprimands makes managers feel like the bad guy. And they just don’t solve the everyday problems of absenteeism, unacceptable behavior, and poor performance.
Because supervisors often feel unsure of exactly how to confront a problem and lack expertise in dealing with all the procedural technicalities and potential legal pitfalls, they avoid taking action until a nuisance becomes a crisis. What’s needed? A system that focuses on personal responsibility, not punishment. A proven system that really works.
Discipline Without Punishment® Performance Improvement System
Dick Grote developed the Discipline Without Punishment performance improvement system. It replaces punishment with a tough-minded insistence that people take personal responsibility for their behavior and performance. Discipline Without Punishment:
- Gives your managers easy-to-use tools that help them solve tough personnel problems.
- Replaces traditional punitive employee discipline measures such as warnings, probations and unpaid suspensions with the requirement that people take personal responsibility for their performance and behavior and commit to doing the job right.
- Creates dramatic reductions in disciplinary incidents, absenteeism and grievances while producing major improvements in employee recognition and commitment.
- Significantly reduces an organization’s exposure to lawsuits and discrimination complaints.
Unique to Discipline Without Punishment is the final step before an employee’s termination – the Decision Making Leave. The employee is suspended for a day with full pay. On this day he must make a final decision: either solve the problem and commit to fully acceptable performance, or quit and find more satisfying employment somewhere else .
And for those situations where a traditional, industrial-type disciplinary response just isn’t appropriate, we can teach your managers powerful techniques to confront and correct sophisticated, complex performance issues with complete confidence.
Services and Solutions
We help organizations implement the principles of the Discipline Without Punishment system that deliver major improvements in employee commitment and performance.
Our Performance Improvement Services include:
How to Make Employees Responsible for Their Performance
In this video, which was produced by the Harvard Business School, Dick Grote explains how to talk with an employee whose performance or behavior is unsatisfactory so that the employee will assume personal responsibility for correcting the problem.
