Have you ever dreaded having a conversation with an employee who wasn’t meeting performance expectations? Maybe you avoided it, hoping it would improve on its own? If so, you are not alone.

Most managers would agree that one of their least favorite tasks is talking to an employee about poor performance. When performance conversations are ignored, success is left up to interpretation. This can only result in conflict because everyone has different perceptions.

When an employee’s failures can no longer be avoided, too many managers say in frustration, “They should have known!” And the good-intentioned employee who thinks they are knocking it out of the park is shocked when they finally find out they are barely getting by.

Addressing performance issues can be unpleasant and stressful, but avoiding difficult discussions leads down dead-end roads:

High stress levels. There are enough things in life to stress out about, and discussing performance doesn’t need to be one of them. Stress is serious business. It accounts for 67 percent of all illness, according to one study.

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