Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Geoffrey Canada, president and C.E.O. of the nonprofit Harlem Children’s Zone: To Stay Great, Never Forget Your Basics:
"Q. A lot of managers go out of their way to avoid having difficult conversations. Your thoughts?
A. I call them adult conversations. People don’t want to have these conversations. They will avoid them. I am often asking people: Do you need help with having these conversations? So you’re going to talk to that person. What are you going to say to them? How are you going to say it?
It’s something that most of us aren’t trained to do. I used to think it was particularly true in a not-for-profit business, because people who come to work at a not-for-profit want to help people, so it’s harder for them to make these tough calls. But the more I have seen people in for-profits, I think they’re even worse at it.
I’m just stunned sometimes with how unwilling people are to bring somebody in the office and just say to them: “Look, you’re a good person. You know I like you. I like your family. This job is not really working out, and I’m going to have to let you go.” And so they will put people in another position, where they don’t really add to the bottom line, so they don’t have to deal with firing them. We don’t have the luxury of being able to do that. I mean, we don’t have positions that we can just sort of stuff you in."
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