It takes work poor attitude tag

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Dear Joan:
My problem is with my daughter. She has been in her first job about one and a half years. She has a communications degree.

The problem is that she was recently given a poor performance review because her boss said she had a negative attitude. My daughter has had some problems with this in school and I'm concerned that this could be affecting her work as well.

My daughter attributes this to the fact that her boss doesn't listen to her ideas about marketing her product, even though she is closest to her customer's needs. She also feels the problems come from working with and for women.

I'm her father so I'm not confident I can be completely objective in this matter. We have a good relationship and I believe she will listen to my advice, since I have established a successful business.

My question is: Should she go for professional counseling with a management psychologist? Do you have any advice for me? For her?

Answer:
Your daughter is lucky to have a dad who cares so much about her success. Since she is so new to the business world, your guidance and coaching will be very important so that she gets off on the right foot.

She appears to have stumbled and it will be important for her to recover quickly if she is to preserve a good work record. As you probably know, more people are fired for a "poor attitude" than for poor performance. She can't afford that kind of a reference for her next job and she won't get ahead in this one.

The first thing she will need to do is to step back from the situation and ask herself if she understands why she was rated poorly for her attitude. She can't improve it if she doesn't know what she did wrong. If her manager didn't explain why, she will need to ask her for specifics. As painful as this may be for her, she must get these details. People with "bad attitudes" often have no idea that they are perceived that way or they wouldn't behave that way in the first place.

If she does ask her supervisor, she must do it calmly and sincerely so that her boss doesn't take it as a personal attack (and additional evidence that she has a bad attitude!). She could say, "I've been thinking about my review and I'd like to improve my attitude. Could you give me some examples of what I should work on?" Her willingness to change will reduce the tension between them and she will set the stage for her boss to be her coach.

Even if your daughter doesn't think she did anything wrong, this approach will reveal how her boss evaluates her and buy her some time to decide if she wants to conform.

Another way to examine the situation objectively is to look at her manager's relationship with her fellow workers. If her peers are also having problems with the boss, she may not be the guilty party.

If she is unwilling to accept any responsibility for this issue, in spite of evidence to the contrary, she may benefit from some counsel other than yours. As you mentioned, it's difficult to give advice-and be heard- when you're related. A management psychologist is certainly one alternative.

Before she decides if an outside counselor is the answer, she may want to ask herself if she is in the right job. Her dissatisfaction may be directly related to a mismatch of skills and abilities. Another problem may be her co-workers. It's possible that they are unprofessional in some way. However, since she's had some similar problems in the past, she may want to examine any recurring patterns.

The important thing to explain is the seriousness of this poor performance review. It could even be a warning of dismissal from her job. She may not realize that this could jeopardize her future career moves. She needs to understand that this isn't the same as not getting along with a high school or college teacher. It's crucial for her to recognize that future employers will be more likely to believe her boss' version of this issue.

Her best bet is to turn this around even if she decides she is going to look for a new job. Her future jobs could depend on it.

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