Skillful Performance Management
Virtual via Zoom
Fee: $15 full members; $60 partial members & non-members
Continuing Education Hours: 3.5
Course Description
Effective leaders address performance concerns early, consistently, and respectfully. Grounding in the principles of Crucial Accountability, this session provides leaders with a practical approach for addressing missed expectations, improving performance, and strengthening accountability across teams. Participants examine why accountability conversations are often avoided and how delays in addressing concerns can affect morale, performance, and team culture.
Leaders learn how to identify performance gaps, hold productive accountability conversations, and support employee success while maintaining clear expectations. Through practice and application, participants develop skills for addressing missed commitments, identifying barriers to performance, responding to resistance, and establishing clear next steps and follow-through. The session reinforces shared responsibility for honoring commitments and respectfully addressing concerns when expectations are not met.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Explain the principles of accountability and their role in creating healthy organizational cultures.
- Differentiate accountability from punishment, blame, or corrective discipline alone.
- Apply key Crucial Accountability skills to address performance concerns and unmet expectations.
- Identify and clarify performance gaps using objective observations and fact-based communication.
- Conduct direct and respectful accountability conversations with employees.
- Identify barriers that contribute to performance challenges and utilize coaching strategies to support improvement.
- Respond effectively to defensiveness, resistance, or emotional reactions while maintaining accountability.
- Promote a culture of universal accountability in which leaders and staff consistently address concerns and follow through on commitments.
About the Trainer
Tess Parker, LMSW
Tess Parker is an accomplished trainer, clinical therapist, and educator. As a former program director in behavioral health, she leverages her Master of Social Work from the University of Denver in a career dedicated to serving individuals experiencing mental health emergencies in both outpatient, and residential settings. Tess believes authenticity and vulnerability are at the core of human connection, and this belief is the foundation of her clinical and consultative approach. Tess has an uncanny ability to strategically identify critical gaps in care and then create programs to bridge those gaps and truly save lives. She is also an avid writer, a minimalist at heart, and values meaningful connections with persons served, customers, and her community.