Have enough information to manage the situation

August 03, 2026

Sometimes the thing holding us back isn’t confidence or courage. It’s information.

In this episode, I explore a simple question that has come up repeatedly in coaching conversations recently: do you have enough information to move a management issue forward? Knowing your organisation’s policies and procedures can make difficult conversations clearer, more confident and much easier to navigate.

Confidence comes from clarity

Many managers delay difficult conversations because they feel uncertain about what comes next.

I explore why taking time to revisit your institution’s policies on performance, misconduct or sickness absence can give you much more confidence when you’re addressing concerns with your team.

Move beyond the repeating conversation

If you’ve listened to previous episodes, you’ll know I’ve talked about the repeating conversation loop.

This episode builds on that idea by looking at what allows you to move from supportive conversations into clearer boundary setting. Often, it’s understanding exactly where your organisation’s policies define the next stage of the process.

Don’t wait for HR to tell you

One of the key messages in this episode is that effective managers stay ahead of the process.

Rather than waiting for HR to tell you when someone has reached a trigger point, understanding the relevant procedures allows you to manage situations proactively and on your own timeline.

Build conviction before you need it

Having the right information doesn’t mean threatening people with policies.

It means knowing the language, the expectations and the escalation points well enough that you can have calm, confident conversations long before a formal process becomes necessary.

Ready for the next step?

If you’d like support developing the confidence to have these conversations and strengthen your management practice, you can find out more about my Getting Ready for Leadership programme here:

https://www.fionabicket.co.uk/getting-ready-for-leadership

Got a question?

Many episodes of Management Matters begin with themes emerging from coaching conversations and questions from listeners.

If there’s a management or leadership topic you’d like me to explore in a future episode, I’d love to hear from you.

[email protected]

Episode Transcript

[00:01.5]
Hello and welcome along to another episode of Management Matters. This week is probably going to be another short episode, but quite like the short episode format, so here we go. I've had this conversation with a couple of different clients lately where they have been working on some of the threshold type of work that I've covered in earlier episodes.

[00:25.9]
So you remember we talked about getting out of the repeating conversation loop, about setting better boundaries and finding your leadership bandwidth and making sure that you're getting time to think by creating more capacity, by dealing with the drama in your team.

[00:48.5]
And I had a couple of clients recently where they were working on that. We're working on progressing some, of those things. And the question or the reminder that I've given to those clients now I'm passing along to you in this episode is, do you have enough information to be able to move this issue along to the next stage?

[01:18.7]
And by that, the information that I'm talking about is things like, have you recently reviewed the definitions of misconduct in your, so I'm just really distracted by three magpies chasing a woodpecker across the meadow that I'm sitting in recording.

[01:44.4]
Just fascinating. Anyway, sorry. Do you have enough information to be able to move this management issue along to the next stage? So things like if you have somebody in your team who is demonstrating behaviour that's not in line with the culture that you want to perpetuate in your team.

[02:06.7]
Have you recently read the disciplinary procedure and/or found the description from your institution about what misconduct is? And the same for sickness absence and performance management.

[02:27.3]
Whatever the thing is that you're currently managing in your team, make sure that you've recently reviewed the relevant policy and definitions for for that type of thing. Even if it's very unlikely that you will ever get to the stage of having to use those policy or procedure because you're pretty confident that you can deal with this issue in an informal stage.

[02:52.2]
It's really going to help you A) have more conviction in the management that you're doing when you know that you're aligned with the institutional policy. Even when it feels totally gross to have to have those conversations and because it can be really helpful to have those definitions in mind for when you're doing things like having boundary conversations.

[03:19.8]
So getting out of that repeating conversation loop where somebody's repeatedly doing something annoying or communicating in a way that you don't think is appropriate or whatever the behaviour is that you don't want to keep happening, instead of keeping going around that conversation and you mention it and give some feedback and be supportive, and they go, oh, yeah, really sorry, won't do that again.

[03:46.0]
And then a couple of weeks later it happens again and then you're having the same conversation over and over and over. What we want to do is move that conversation to the boundary conversation where we're saying, listen, I'm noticing that this keeps happening. We're in a bit of a loop here.

[04:03.7]
We're now going to be needing to move this into a different stage of this conversation. And, you know, whichever policy or procedure this falls under, knowing what those stages are and what those definitions are, because often those policies and they vary from institution to institution, but some institutions have very clearly defined lists of what is misconduct or what their ethical standards of behaviour are.

[04:36.8]
LSE in particular is really good at this. UCL is like, okay. I haven't checked many others recently, but go and check, what do they actually say? So that you can use that wording in those conversations, not that we're threatening people with, like, if you don't sort this out, then I'll, you know, move you to a formal stage of performance management or whatever.

[05:00.3]
Not saying we're going to use it in that way, but being able to identify okay, so five times in the last month I've asked you to do something and you haven't done it. That's to me, I'm reading this as now repeatedly, not following instructions given to you by a manager that officially forms part of misconduct.

[05:26.6]
And if it continues to happen, then I will be consulting HR about what to do with this. Or if it continues to happen, then we'll need to review what projects you're working on. Or if that continues to happen, then we'll be, I don't know, whatever other things are available to you as levers to use in your management practise.

[05:47.4]
But the point is, if you don't know that failing to follow reasonable instructions forms part of the definition or one of the aspects of misconduct, then it's really difficult to have that conversation in a coherent and way that is full of conviction.

[06:05.5]
I'm not sure I've described this very well. It goes better in coaching. But my point is, get the information. Have a look at the policy and procedure, because it's part of your job as a manager and one of the thresholds that we talk about is that when we're, like, hoping that HR will manage things for us.

[06:27.1]
Actually, if you've got somebody with an absence challenge is don't wait for HR to tell you that they've reached a trigger point in the procedure. You should know, oh, this person's been off three times in the last however many weeks.

[06:43.8]
That's approaching one of the thresholds. So you can have that conversation with that individual and let them know instead of HR eventually catching up with the fact that they have somebody in the department who has overpassed that threshold already.

[07:00.3]
And so you're then lumbered with having this conversation that you didn't want to have on someone else's timeline versus if you were more actively on top of that stuff, you can have that conversation in a timely way on your own terms, rather than it being an edict from HR that you have to do it.

[07:18.5]
So I think that was all for today. Management really does matter. Make sure you've got enough information about the flavour of whatever management issue is that you're dealing with, and have that information about the escalation points in mind or at least saved on your desktop or in your recent folder.

[07:43.1]
So that you can refer to it and be using the language of the procedure in those conversations so that it's a legitimate part of that process. And it's not like you've had this repeating conversation. You've moved it along to the next stage.

[07:59.8]
And then you go to your HR advisor and say, right, well, I need to move this issue to the next stage. And they go, well, have you documented it? Have you told this person that if they continue with this behaviour then it will be moving to a formal stage? Oh, no, I haven't done that.

[08:16.3]
And then it's like you're set back three months as you have to go back through doing that process. So instead, make sure you've got all the information that you need at your fingertips. Have those really robust conversations. If you're not sure how to have those conversations and you need some help, then coaching could be a really good place to do that.

[08:34.9]
Remember, as I said last episode, you are actually totally awesome. And even though it feels totally gross, you can do these things. And I think that's all for now. Take good care and I'll see you next time. Bye.