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How To Address A Sudden Performance Drop With Empathy And Boundaries · The Caribbean Workplace Wellness Channel

0:12
Sarah: Picture this.
0:13
Sarah: It's um it's a Tuesday afternoon.
0:14
Adrian: Okay, set in the scene.
0:16
Sarah: Right.
0:16
Sarah: You are sitting at your desk and you're just staring at a project report that was submitted by your absolute best employee.
0:24
Sarah: Oh, I know where this is going.
0:25
Sarah: Yeah.
0:25
Sarah: We're talking about the person who is normally your rock.
0:29
Sarah: Like they never miss a beat.
0:30
Sarah: Their work is always flawless.
0:32
Sarah: Clients literally request them by name.
0:34
Adrian: The star player.
0:35
Sarah: Exactly.
0:37
Sarah: But lately, something is decidedly off.
0:40
Sarah: This current report is just riddled with sloppy errors.
0:44
Sarah: And last week they completely missed a massive client deadline, which is, you know, entirely out of character.
0:50
Adrian: Like total red flag.
0:51
Sarah: And worse, they have been incredibly short-tempered with the rest of the team.
0:55
Sarah: So you get that sinking feeling in your stomach because, you know, instinctively, that this isn't just a sudden lack of skill.
1:01
Adrian: No, of course not.
1:02
Sarah: Something is going on behind the scenes, something personal and likely very, very emotional.
1:06
Adrian: Yeah, and the anxiety in that specific moment is almost universal for anyone in a leadership position.
1:12
Sarah: Oh, definitely.
1:13
Adrian: Because watching a star player drop the ball in real time forces a manager into a highly uncomfortable space.
1:21
Adrian: The skills that make you good at running a business are rarely the same skills required to navigate a sudden human crisis.
1:28
Sarah: Which is exactly the core mission of our deep dive today.
1:32
Sarah: We are pulling from this incredibly practical set of source materials brought to us by the Caribbean Workplace Wellness Channel and the Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing.
1:42
Adrian: Great sources, really solid, actionable stuff.
1:45
Sarah: Yeah, they really are.
1:46
Sarah: So we are going to equip you, the listener, with a highly structured framework for navigating these high-stakes well-being conversations.
1:53
Adrian: I guess it's tricky.
1:54
Sarah: It is, because the fundamental question you have to answer is how do you address sudden performance drops with genuine compassion without accidentally like turning yourself into an informal therapist or crossing some serious clinical lines?
2:06
Sarah: Okay, let's unpack this.
2:07
Adrian: Yeah, we really have to start by understanding the psychology of why these conversations feel so paralyzing to initiate in the first place.
2:14
Sarah: Wait, why do we freeze up?
2:15
Adrian: Well, when you see those missed deadlines or hear a client complaint regarding a previously stellar employee, you immediately find yourself trapped in what psychologists and management experts call a double bind.
2:27
Sarah: A double bind.
2:29
Adrian: Right.
2:29
Adrian: It's this behavioral trap where every obvious choice seems to carry a massive destructive penalty.
2:35
Sarah: Aaron Powell So like a doomed if you do, doomed if you don't scenario.
2:39
Adrian: Aaron Powell In every sense.
2:40
Adrian: I mean, let's look at the first instinct many managers have, which is avoiding the issue entirely.
2:45
Sarah: Aaron Powell Just burying your head in the sand.
2:47
Adrian: Exactly.
2:48
Adrian: You might rationalize it by thinking, well, it's clearly a personal issue.
2:51
Adrian: I should just give them space and let them work through it.
2:53
Sarah: Aaron Powell Which sounds kind of compassionate, actually.
2:55
Adrian: Aaron Powell It sounds compassionate, but avoiding the conversation usually causes the performance to degrade even further.
3:01
Adrian: The missed deadlines just pile up.
3:03
Adrian: And consequently, the rest of the team has to pick up the slack.
3:07
Sarah: Oh, right.
3:07
Sarah: The ripple effect.
3:08
Adrian: Yeah, which causes team morale to plummet and breeds this very toxic resentment.
3:12
Sarah: Aaron Powell So ignoring it simply transfers the suffering from one employee to the entire team.
3:18
Sarah: But the alternative feels just as dangerous, right?
3:21
Sarah: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
3:21
Adrian: It does.
3:22
Adrian: Addressing it clumsily carries enormous institutional and human risks.
3:27
Adrian: If you push too hard, you could severely escalate the employee's emotional distress.
3:32
Sarah: Right.
3:32
Adrian: You could inadvertently trigger a formal HR dispute by using the wrong phrasing.
3:38
Adrian: Or, perhaps most dangerously, you could violate strict privacy parameters by prying into medical or personal issues that you have absolutely no legal right to know about.
3:48
Sarah: You know, reading through the sources, this dynamic immediately made me think of a car dashboard.
3:52
Adrian: Oh, I like that.
3:53
Adrian: How so?
3:54
Sarah: Well, it's like you are driving a vehicle you rely on every single day and suddenly the check engine light starts flashing.
4:01
Sarah: You know something is deeply wrong under the hood.
4:03
Sarah: But the problem is you aren't a certified mechanic.
4:06
Adrian: Right, you're just the driver.
4:08
Sarah: Exactly.
4:08
Sarah: If you just ignore the flashing light and keep driving on the highway, the engine is eventually going to seize up entirely, leaving you completely stranded.
4:15
Adrian: That's a great way to put it.
4:17
Adrian: What's fascinating here is that if you pop the hood and just start yanking on wires and tinkering with the transmission yourself, you might void the warranty or cause an electrical fire.
4:27
Sarah: Right.
4:27
Adrian: You make it worse.
4:28
Adrian: Way worse.
4:30
Adrian: When managers try to play amateur mechanic with an employee's mental health, they usually end up crossing massive ethical lines.
4:37
Adrian: This mechanic dilemma triggers a false dichotomy in the workplace.
4:41
Sarah: What do you mean by false dichotomy?
4:43
Adrian: Well, managers often feel forced to choose between two extreme personas.
4:47
Adrian: Like they either put on the hat of the cold, ruthless corporate enforcer.
4:51
Sarah: Like fix this performance now, or you're fired.
4:53
Adrian: Exactly.
4:54
Adrian: Or they swing wildly in the other direction and try to play the empathetic probing therapist.
4:59
Adrian: Like, tell me everything about your childhood trauma and let's heal you.
5:03
Sarah: Wow.
5:03
Sarah: Yeah.
5:04
Sarah: The cold enforcer destroys psychological safety, and the amateur therapist creates a massive liability.
5:10
Adrian: Exactly.
5:11
Adrian: The actual goal is synthesizing the two.
5:13
Sarah: Yeah.
5:13
Adrian: The framework we're exploring teaches leaders how to combine genuine human empathy with very firm, impenetrable professional boundaries.
5:21
Sarah: Okay, so let's get into the actual mechanics of how to do that.
5:24
Sarah: Since randomly pulling wires under the hood is a terrible idea, how are we supposed to open this conversation?
5:30
Adrian: Right, step one.
5:31
Sarah: The Caribbean Workplace Wellness Channel provides an incredibly clear blueprint called the Care Framework, C-A-R-E, four distinct steps.
5:41
Sarah: And the first step, the C, stands for curiosity.
5:44
Adrian: Yeah, curiosity is your opening move, but the physical setup of this move really dictates its success.
5:50
Sarah: The setup, like the room.
5:51
Adrian: Yes.
5:52
Adrian: Before a single word is spoken, you must secure a private, neutral environment, zero interruptions.
5:58
Sarah: Okay, that makes sense.
5:59
Adrian: No ringing phones, no slack notifications pinging in the background, and definitely no glass-walled conference rooms where the entire sales floor can watch the employees sweating or crying.
6:08
Sarah: Oh, yeah.
6:09
Sarah: The fishbowl conference rooms are the worst for this.
6:11
Sarah: So the environment acts as a primer for the conversation.
6:14
Adrian: It signals safety.
6:15
Adrian: The objective of this first step is to open the dialogue using observable, non-accusatory facts.
6:21
Adrian: Your entire focus needs to be on support rather than discipline.
6:25
Adrian: You are initiating a wellness check-in, not a performance reprimand.
6:29
Sarah: I want to look at the actual role-play scripts provided in the research because I think this is where the theory becomes a really usable tool for you listening right now.
6:36
Adrian: Oh, absolutely.
6:37
Adrian: The scripts are gold.
6:39
Sarah: We have clear examples of what not to say and what to say.
6:42
Sarah: So the sources explicitly warn against opening with something like, uh, your performance has been terrible lately.
6:49
Sarah: Are you depressed or having trouble at home?
6:52
Adrian: Right.
6:52
Adrian: Hearing those words out loud really highlights the immediate friction.
6:56
Adrian: The word terrible is a subjective emotional judgment.
7:00
Sarah: It feels like an attack.
7:01
Adrian: It is an attack.
7:02
Adrian: When a human being feels judged or attacked, their amygdala, that's the brain's threat detection center, it just fires up.
7:09
Adrian: Cortisol floods their system, and they instantly enter a fight, flight, or freeze state.
7:15
unknown: Wow.
7:16
Adrian: And furthermore, asking, are you depressed is a wildly inappropriate attempt at a clinical diagnosis.
7:22
Sarah: I mean, if a boss said that to me, my arms would cross, my jaw would clench, and I wouldn't tell them a single true thing about what was happening in my life.
7:29
Adrian: Exactly.
7:29
Adrian: You cannot have a productive, vulnerable conversation with someone who is physiologically preparing for battle.
7:36
Sarah: Okay, so let's look at the recommended script.
7:39
Sarah: The alternative approach goes like this.
7:42
Sarah: Thank you for taking time to meet today.
7:44
Sarah: I wanted to check in because I've noticed a shift over the last few weeks.
7:48
Sarah: Normally your project reports are flawless, but recently we've missed two client deadlines.
7:53
Sarah: I'm not bringing this up to reprimand you.
7:55
Sarah: I'm checking in to see how you are doing and how we can support you.
7:58
Adrian: Aaron Powell The architecture of that statement is highly intentional.
8:02
Sarah: It feels very different.
8:03
Adrian: It does.
8:03
Adrian: It begins with gratitude, which lowers the temperature right away.
8:07
Adrian: Yeah.
8:07
Adrian: Then it relies on objective, measurable facts.
8:11
Adrian: You know, we've missed two client deadlines rather than subjective judgments like your work is terrible.
8:16
Adrian: Right.
8:16
Adrian: And most importantly, it explicitly states the intent of the meeting, which is support.
8:22
Sarah: Okay.
8:22
Sarah: I do want to push back on this opening a bit, specifically for the listeners who are managing high-stakes, multi-million dollar projects.
8:29
Sarah: Sure.
8:29
Sarah: If an employee is blowing actual client deadlines, doesn't starting a meeting with the phrase, I'm not bringing this up to reprimand you, completely undermine your authority.
8:39
Adrian: Aaron Powell It's a common concern.
8:40
Sarah: Aaron Powell Like, aren't we just sugarcoating bad performance and giving them a free pass?
8:45
Adrian: Aaron Powell That fear of losing authority is incredibly common, but we have to look at the underlying behavioral science here.
8:52
Adrian: Stating your intent as supportive doesn't magically erase the missed deadline.
8:57
Adrian: You literally just established the missed deadline in the previous sentence.
9:00
Sarah: Aaron Powell That's true.
9:01
Sarah: You did put it on the table.
9:02
Adrian: Exactly.
9:03
Adrian: The goal here is disarming the alarm system.
9:05
Adrian: If an underperforming employee believes they are walking into a room to be fired, they will lie, they will deflect blame, or they will completely shut down.
9:14
Sarah: So you are intentionally lowering the physiological threat level so they feel psychologically safe enough to reveal the root cause.
9:21
Adrian: Precisely.
9:22
Adrian: You cannot fix the operational problem until you understand the nature of the human problem.
9:27
Adrian: And taking that a step further, managers often assume that a struggling employee will react to this conversation with sadness or tears.
9:34
Sarah: Right.
9:34
Sarah: We expect them to break down crying.
9:36
Adrian: But what if they get defensive or openly angry?
9:39
Adrian: The curiosity framework diffuses anger because anger is almost always a secondary emotion masking fear.
9:46
Sarah: Oh, wow.
9:47
Adrian: Yeah.
9:48
Adrian: By removing the threat of immediate reprimand, you remove the fuel for their defensive anger.
9:52
Sarah: Okay, so the curiosity script works.
9:54
Sarah: The threat level is down, the employee feels safe, and now the floodgates open.
9:58
Adrian: The scary part.
9:59
Sarah: Yeah.
10:00
Sarah: They sit back in their chair and start pouring out highly personal information about like a brutal custody battle or a severe health diagnosis or a mental health crisis.
10:10
Sarah: As a manager, the instinct is to jump in and fix it or try to relate to it.
10:14
Adrian: It's human nature.
10:15
Sarah: How do you survive this moment without becoming their therapist?
10:19
Sarah: This brings us to the A and the R of the care framework.
10:22
Sarah: Acknowledge and resources.
10:24
Adrian: This transition is the most delicate phase of the entire process.
10:27
Adrian: Step two, acknowledge, requires tremendous discipline.
10:31
Sarah: Discipline, how so?
10:32
Adrian: You have to listen actively, which means resisting the urge to interrupt, judge, or offer unsolicited personal advice.
10:41
Adrian: Your task is to validate their human experience while strictly maintaining your clinical boundary.
10:47
Sarah: The sources are very clear on the dangerous pitfalls here.
10:50
Sarah: They warn against saying things like, I know exactly how you feel, I went through a terrible depression last year, here is what you should do, or you need to get some psychiatric help immediately.
11:00
Adrian: Yeah, managers usually make this mistake with the purest of intentions.
11:04
Adrian: They see another human being in pain and they want to build a bridge.
11:07
Sarah: It feels like empathy.
11:09
Sarah: You're trying to show them they aren't alone.
11:11
Adrian: It mimics empathy, but it's actually projection.
11:14
Adrian: When you say, I know exactly how you feel, I had depression, you have just centered yourself in their crisis.
11:19
Sarah: Oh, right.
11:20
Sarah: You made it about you.
11:21
Adrian: Exactly.
11:22
Adrian: You are also implicitly diagnosing them by comparing their unique distress to your own clinical history.
11:28
Adrian: And the moment you say, Here is what you should do, you have crossed into the treacherous territory of dispensing psychological advice without a license.
11:37
Sarah: So the correct approach, the what to say script for acknowledging, keeps the focus entirely on them.
11:42
Sarah: It goes like this.
11:45
Sarah: Thank you for sharing that with me.
11:46
Sarah: It sounds like you are navigating an immense amount of pressure right now, and I appreciate your honesty.
11:51
Adrian: Notice how that script validates the emotion, the immense pressure.
11:57
Adrian: But it does it without ever assigning a medical label to it.
12:00
Sarah: Yeah, it doesn't say your depression or your anxiety.
12:03
Adrian: Right.
12:04
Adrian: You are holding a safe space for their distress, but you are firmly holding the boundary of your professional role.
12:11
Sarah: Which leads right into the R resources.
12:13
Sarah: Because once you acknowledge the pain, you can't just nod and send them back to their cubicle, right?
12:17
Adrian: I can't just leave them hanging.
12:19
Adrian: You transition into signposting official institutional resources.
12:23
Adrian: You reassure the employee they don't have to navigate the crisis in isolation.
12:27
Sarah: Now, if you are in management, you likely already know that your company has an employee assistance program, an EAP.
12:33
Sarah: The insight here isn't that these programs exist, but rather how you frame them.
12:38
Adrian: The framing is everything.
12:39
Sarah: The script provided is fantastic.
12:41
Sarah: You say, our organization has dedicated confidential resources designed specifically for times like this.
12:48
Sarah: We have our EAP that offers free confidential counseling.
12:52
Sarah: I can send you the direct contact details right now, or we can reach out to HR together if you prefer.
12:57
Adrian: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the brilliance of that specific phrasing lies in how it handles the stigma often associated with EAPs.
13:07
Sarah: Stigma, you mean people feeling weird about using them.
13:10
Adrian: Exactly.
13:10
Adrian: By saying designed specifically for times like this, you normalize the usage of the program.
13:15
Adrian: It isn't a penalty box for broken employees.
13:17
Adrian: It's a standard tool.
13:18
Adrian: Right.
13:19
Adrian: Furthermore, by offering them the choice, I can send you the details, or we can go to HR together, you are giving them agency.
13:26
Sarah: Why is that micro level of choice so important in that moment?
13:29
Sarah: Like why not just send them the link and be done with it?
13:31
Adrian: Because trauma and severe stress fundamentally rob a person of their feeling of control.
13:36
Adrian: When their personal life is spiraling, offering them a small safe choice restores a fragment of their cognitive control.
13:43
Adrian: It empowers them to take the next step on their own terms.
13:47
Sarah: Wow.
13:48
Sarah: Listening to this, the manager's role becomes incredibly clear.
13:51
Sarah: You are essentially operating as a triage nurse.
13:54
Adrian: Oh, that's a perfect analogy.
13:55
Sarah: Right.
13:56
Sarah: When you walk into an emergency room with a broken arm, the triage nurse validates that you are in pain.
14:02
Sarah: They assess the immediate severity of the situation, but they don't whip out a scalpel and try to perform orthopedic surgery right there in the waiting room.
14:10
Adrian: No, they wheel you to the specialist who actually possesses the tools and the sterile environment to fix the root problem.
14:18
Sarah: Right.
14:18
Adrian: And keeping with that, refusing to perform surgery in the waiting room isn't just about good management.
14:24
Adrian: It's about enterprise protection and human dignity.
14:28
Adrian: Yeah.
14:28
Adrian: Refusing to diagnose an employee protects the company from massive legal liabilities regarding workplace discrimination.
14:35
Adrian: But on a human level, it fiercely protects the employees' fundamental right to medical privacy.
14:40
Adrian: They are allowed to struggle and they are allowed to get help without their boss knowing the intimate details of their therapy sessions.
14:47
Sarah: Let's explore an edge case here, actually.
14:49
Sarah: Let's say you play the perfect triage nurse.
14:52
Sarah: You offer the EAP, you frame it beautifully, you give them agency.
14:56
Sarah: What if they just flat out refuse?
14:59
Sarah: What if they say, I'm not talking to a company shrink, I just need to get through this week?
15:04
Adrian: That resistance happens frequently, honestly.
15:06
Adrian: When it does, your role is not to force compliance.
15:10
Adrian: You cannot mandate therapy.
15:11
Adrian: You simply reiterate that the door remains open.
15:14
Sarah: Just leave it on the table.
15:15
Adrian: Exactly.
15:16
Adrian: You might say, I understand the resource is there if you ever change your mind.
15:21
Adrian: My priority right now is figuring out how we can support you here at work.
15:24
Sarah: Aaron Powell, which provides the perfect bridge to the final step of the framework.
15:28
Sarah: We've acknowledged the human distress, we've offered the resources, but um the client deadlines are still being missed.
15:35
Adrian: Yes, the business.
15:35
Sarah: The business still has to function.
15:37
Sarah: How do you fix the actual operational reality of the missed reports?
15:41
Adrian: The framework requires the E in carry evaluation.
15:44
Adrian: This is where you bring the conversation back to the operational reality of the business, but you do it collaboratively.
15:50
Sarah: I have to admit, I struggle with visualizing this pivot.
15:54
Adrian: Why is that?
15:55
Sarah: Well, I get that we have to keep the business running, but sitting down with someone who just cried in my office about a custody battle and saying, okay, let's look at your deliverables feels incredibly jarring.
16:05
Sarah: Like, how do you shift back to the work without sounding completely heartless and undoing all the trust you just built?
16:11
Adrian: That's completely fair.
16:13
Adrian: The pivot works when you frame the work adjustment as a continuation of the support you just offered.
16:18
Adrian: You are transitioning from emotional support to structural support.
16:22
Sarah: Structural support, okay.
16:24
Adrian: A brain navigating a crisis is suffering from severe decision fatigue and cognitive overload.
16:30
Adrian: Everything feels impossible to them.
16:32
Sarah: Let's look at the script template for workload adjustment because this makes it super practical.
16:36
Sarah: The recommended way to frame this evaluation phase is let's look at your current workload for the next two weeks.
16:42
Sarah: Can we pause project B and reassign your administrative tasks so you can focus exclusively on core project A?
16:48
Sarah: Let's meet again next Thursday to review how this temporary adjustment is working.
16:52
Adrian: That structure acts as an anchor for an overwhelmed brain.
16:55
Adrian: It puts a clear time boundary on the intervention, you know, the next two weeks.
16:59
Sarah: Right?
17:00
Sarah: It's not forever.
17:01
Adrian: Exactly.
17:02
Adrian: It identifies exactly what is being taken off their plate, which provides immediate relief, and it clarifies exactly what they are still accountable for, which provides focus.
17:11
Sarah: Okay, here's where it gets really interesting.
17:13
Sarah: I want to zero in on a massive warning sign in the research.
17:16
Sarah: The source materials explicitly give us a what not to say for this evaluation phase.
17:22
Sarah: And the absolute forbidden phrase is don't worry about work at all, take as much time as you want, and don't worry about your deliverables.
17:29
Adrian: Yes, the boundless leniency trap.
17:31
Sarah: But on the surface, wouldn't a deeply overwhelmed, stressed-out employee want to hear exactly that?
17:36
Sarah: Isn't giving someone a total free pass the ultimate form of compassion?
17:40
Adrian: It masquerades as compassion, but practically it is destructive.
17:43
Adrian: Boundless leniency harms the enterprise because, well, the work simply isn't getting done, but more surprisingly, it severely harms the employee's recovery process.
17:53
Sarah: How does giving someone a break actually hurt them?
17:56
Adrian: Well, consider the psychology of a person whose personal life feels entirely out of control.
18:02
Adrian: If you strip away all of their professional responsibilities and tell them to not worry about anything, you inadvertently strip away their sense of purpose, their daily routine, and their professional identity.
18:13
Sarah: Oh wow.
18:14
Sarah: You leave them floating in a void with nothing to do but ruminate on their crisis.
18:18
Adrian: Exactly.
18:19
Adrian: Furthermore, they are intelligent professionals.
18:22
Adrian: They know the work doesn't just disappear.
18:24
Adrian: By saying, take as much time as you want, you generate massive anticipatory anxiety.
18:29
Sarah: Oh, I hadn't thought of that.
18:30
Adrian: Yeah, they sit at home staring at the ceiling, just imagining their inbox multiplying like rabbits and the backlog turning into this insurmountable mountain.
18:39
Sarah: They are dreading the eventual return to the office more and more with each passing day.
18:43
Adrian: Exactly.
18:44
Adrian: Realistic, time-bound adjustments, like focusing solely on core project A, provide a manageable, contained structure.
18:51
Adrian: It gives them a winnable game during a season of their life where they feel like they are losing at everything else.
18:57
Sarah: That makes so much sense.
18:58
Adrian: It maintains their dignity as a contributing member of the team while accommodating their temporarily reduced capacity.
19:05
Sarah: Structure as a form of support rather than a form of punishment, that completely changes how I view performance management.
19:12
Adrian: Right.
19:12
Adrian: Accountability and empathy are not mutually exclusive concepts.
19:17
Adrian: In practice, they require each other to be truly effective.
19:20
Sarah: So if you are listening right now and thinking about a past conversation you botched because you tried to give life advice, or maybe because you swung too hard into the enforcer role, don't beat yourself up.
19:31
Sarah: It is an incredibly common trap.
19:33
Adrian: Very common.
19:34
Adrian: We've all been there.
19:35
Sarah: But moving forward, you have a system.
19:37
Sarah: You absolutely do not need professional training in mental health or crisis management to navigate these high-stakes conversations.
19:45
Adrian: You just need a reliable methodology that protects both the human being and the organization.
19:49
Sarah: The care framework does exactly that.
19:51
Sarah: Curiosity allows you to open with objective, supportive observations, lowering that threat level.
19:57
Sarah: Acknowledgement lets you validate their feelings without centering yourself or diagnosing them.
20:03
Sarah: Resources empowers you to signpost them to professional help, like an EAP while restoring their agency.
20:09
Sarah: An evaluation gives you a template for collaborating on realistic, structured workload adjustments that keep the business moving.
20:16
Adrian: Perfectly summarized.
20:17
Sarah: It's a tool that lets you keep the engine running smoothly without pretending you're a mechanic.
20:21
Adrian: It's a highly practical, deeply humane approach to modern leadership.
20:26
Sarah: Before we wrap up today's deep dive, I want to leave you with a final, slightly provocative thought to chew on.
20:31
Adrian: Okay, let's hear it.
20:33
Sarah: This entire care framework brilliantly adjazzs what to do when an employee's distress causes their performance to drop.
20:39
Sarah: It's the classic visible warning sign.
20:42
Sarah: Right.
20:43
Sarah: But what happens if an employee's coping mechanism for a severe personal trauma isn't dropping the ball, but rather throwing themselves entirely obsessively into their job?
20:52
Adrian: Ah, the high-performing flight response.
20:55
Sarah: How do you, as a manager, spot and address a severe well-being crisis when the employees' operational metrics aren't plummeting but are actually skyrocketing?
21:03
Adrian: That's a tough one.
21:04
Sarah: When they are volunteering for every project and working 80 hours a week just to avoid going home to an empty house or a terrifying reality, that's a check engine light that is much, much harder to spot because the car is suddenly winning every race.
21:20
Adrian: A phenomenal question for any leader to ponder as they evaluate their top performers.
21:25
Sarah: Something to mull over as you look at your own team this week.
21:28
Sarah: Remember, you don't have to be the mechanic to know when a car needs to go to the shop.
21:33
Sarah: You just need to know how to read the dashboard and where to send the vehicle.
21:37
Sarah: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
21:39
Sarah: We highly encourage you to keep the care steps in your back pocket for your own leadership journey.
21:44
Sarah: We'll catch you next time.