By Joseph J. Bucci ——Bio and Archives--August 30, 2024

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Somehow, in the scope of home management projects, the task of taking out the trash has fallen to me. It is not that hard to do, it is just a messy, smelly job most days. I am sure my wife would happily trade taking out the trash with cleaning the bathroom. That is a task that has fallen to her. If I said she was good at it, would that make things worse or better?

In order to make things run smoothly, everyone has tasks that they need to do. Some are fun tasks, like cleaning up for a visit by the grandkids – more fun before the visit, but still fun after as we reflect on the times we had together. I like taking the dog for a haircut, because of how good he looks when it is over; and the absence of dog hair in the house for a few days.

But then there are things we don’t like to do. Some of these things are hard things, like a sit-down with a student who has demonstrated unethical behavior by cheating on an exam or by plagiarism. It is hard to haul yourself up out of bed after being sick or away for a long weekend; but we need to work in order to put food on the table. What about sitting across from an employee for a discipline meeting or a termination? I have done both, more times than I care to remember.

These are hard things. No one likes to be honest with other people because it is a hard thing. That is why in HR circles, managers are told that they must say hard things to employees in order to make sure that they are not just giving inflated performance scores to employees. But most managers don’t like to do that. Tamra Chandler, an HR expert writing about managers’ lack of hard conversations with employees in performance appraisals, says that “90 percent or more of employees reviewed [by managers] end up in the “Meets,” “Exceeds,” or “Significantly Exceeds” category. In short, managers tend “to be more ‘nice’ than ‘accurate’” (Chandler, 2016).

Is it possible that we can learn to do the hard things with joy? Why........

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