become productive within the organisation in the said role. We ensured the project leader that we would not report back to management until we had a firm conclusion which would be discussed with him first. Together, we established his point of view, the drivers for his logic and his willingness to change. In this process it was important that the person could fully explain his thoughts without reservations. He was then asked to describe the logic his manager had put forward, which had been confirmed by HR, and feedback why he thought this role was difficult for him to fulfill.

First we observed that the interpretation of the message came with regular interpretive side remarks and qualifications from his side revealing the real reasons why he did not buy into the new job description. He did not feel fully competent to execute this role, but had difficulties expressing this, given his long state of service and implied experience. Parts of the job required activities he did not like and his substantial bar turned out to be pure imagination. Towards the end of our discussions it became clear that the distance between what he stated and what management wanted was much smaller than what was originally thought, but the remaining gap was explained mostly by a lack of capabilities and not an unwillingness to act.

We suggested several solutions to him and to management, one of which was selected and executed.