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When an employee won't change, most managers assume they just haven't found the right technique yet. So they keep coaching. They redirect. They send the employee to more trainings, involve HR, try new frameworks, and hope something finally sticks. The dial doesn't move, and the manager gets more exhausted, more doubtful, sometimes more resentful.

Before you reach for one more approach, I want to invite you to ask a completely different question: what if the issue isn't which technique you haven't tried yet, but whether it's still your job to keep trying at all?

In this episode, I share a tool I call the Paper Doll. I brought it into a live workshop after a manager asked me exactly this question, and it stopped the room. The Paper Doll is a simple, powerful framework that helps you recognize when you have genuinely reached the ceiling of your coaching jurisdiction, and gives you the structure to draw that line and stop carrying what was never yours to carry.

I walk you through four steps: naming the ceiling on what you can actually influence, running a real audit of everything you have tried, drawing the paper doll line (that is the moment this framework gets its name), and arriving at radical acceptance of where your responsibility ends and someone else's begins.

This is not about giving up on an employee. It is a precise and intentional act of recognizing where your jurisdiction ends, because you have done everything within your power. The line I keep coming back to from this episode: you are not responsible for whether another adult chooses to grow. That sentence has a way of releasing something in managers who have been carrying a weight they were never supposed to carry.

Listen and catch the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch it and replay it on my YouTube channel, JanelAndersonPhD.

This employee just won't change. I've tried everything. I've coached. I've redirected.

I've given feedback every which way till Sunday. But my employee will not take the coaching. They do good work in most areas, but there is this one thing, and no matter what I do, nothing changes. They say they're going to change.

They understand the right way to do this particular process, and then they don't. What am I supposed to do? Now I hear this from managers occasionally, and I heard it recently. In fact, in a workshop that I was that I was facilitating, and I'll tell you more about that a little in a little bit, but I want to talk about it today because most of the advice that you're going to find online is going to try one more thing, one more thing, one more new coaching technique, one more thing to try with the employee, one more training to send them, one more individual development plan objective for them to have.

But today, I'm going to encourage you to try a different approach, to have a different conversation with yourself, and to reframe it. I'm going to give you something completely different. I'm going to give you permission to let it go. Yes, that's right, permission to let it go, but only under certain circumstances.

You're not going to let it go every single time. We'll talk about what is the threshold at which you need to cut bait on this. Okay, because the real question here is not which technique, which magical technique for coaching an employee or managing or supervising them have I not tried yet? Some, with some people, with some employees, and you know, in your personal life as well, because this all applies to your personal life too.

At some point, you reach a point that is not what new thing have I not yet tried, but instead it's can I stop? And and it's not stopping in giving up, but it's stopping as a strategy for self-preservation for yourself, because good managers carry this hidden belief that it is my job to fix this. If the employee isn't improving, the manager is going to assume that the problem is their approach, their patience, their skill, the fact that they haven't sent this person to enough trainings yet, and so they keep trying and trying and trying, and the manager gets more and more exhausted, and just spent and burned out. They might even start to resent the employee, or they might doubt themselves, or some combination of the two.

So here's the reframe: not every performance gap is coachable. Now some things are, and some things aren't, and some people are, and some people aren't, and your job as a manager is not to try to extract change from another human being indefinitely. In fact, let me say that again. Your job as a manager is not to try to extract change from another human being indefinitely.

Now, let me get back to the workshop where this came up. This was just very recent, and I was doing a workshop on difficult conversations. This was the manager and supervisor edition, so I only have managers, supervisors, directors, and so on in the room, and we're talking about having the difficult conversation with employees. And one of this was very near the end of the training, we're wrapping things up.

I'm taking final questions, and this is the time when the best questions honestly come to light because people are sitting there and you know they've been in in this session with me now for a few hours and they've worked through a couple of like pragmatic, realistic situations that they bring to the table and they workshop them with a partner, and this is the point in the workshop at which they're bumping up against the stuff that has really gotten under their skin. So this is just a rich, rich conversation, and I love the questions that come up at this point in the workshop. I mean, I love all the questions that come up in the workshop, but this particular point is where sometimes the richest, stickiest wickets come up in the you know in in in class, so one of them asked me exactly this question that I've been talking through right now. His employee was performing well in most areas, but there was this one thing, and he had tried everything, and the dial just wasn't moving in this one particular area, and he wanted to know what to do, and so I went through my set of diagnostics.

I'm like, have you know, have you been training them on this? Have you given them the checklist to follow? Have and they said yes, yes, yes. So we've tried all of those things.

It's not that the employee doesn't understand what to do. The employee absolutely understands what to do. Okay, well, and then what happens? Well, then they say they're going to try, but there's no evidence of actually trying.

It seems like they just backslide right after they have the conversation about what they're going to do differently. They just don't do the thing differently, and then they come back to the meeting and they say, "I know. I said I was going to try harder. I was going to do it differently.

Or I was going to follow the instructions. I know I was going to, and I didn't. Okay. Now this becomes a different category of an issue with an employee.

So my next point of intervention is: What else have you tried? Have you tried something like the employee assistance program? Because their organization has a very robust employee assistance program, where it's not just about getting mental health counseling if that's what you need, but there's all kinds of other career coaching and job aids and all sorts of things that are involved. And he said, "Yes, yes, we've tried that, and even they've come back.

The employees come back from a career coaching session or or a productivity enhancement session. You know, with like, here's the new tools I'm going to try, and then they don't. So he wanted to know what to do, and so I gave him a tool there, right there in the room. I call it bonus content when I bring in something that's relevant but yet unplanned to what we're doing in in terms of like a curriculum that I have planned.

So there's no slide for this. There's no worksheet in the materials that they're working from. This is just bonus content. It's relevant and absolutely on point to what to what they need.

So as I explained to the group, and I'm going to explain to you, this is the bonus content. I call it the paper doll tool, and I learned it from a mentor and coach that I have. And here's how it works. The idea is think of a paper doll.

Now, if you are of a certain age, and that is a younger generation than me. You might not know what a paper doll is, so I'm going going to explain what a paper doll is. In fact, I had to for the person in the coaching session because he was just looking me, looking with looking at me with a blank look when I said, "Do you know what a paper doll is? And he just looked no, and he kind of looked around the room at his colleagues, and all of the older millennials, the Gen Xers, and the baby boomers.

We all knew what a paper doll was, but this younger person didn't. So I explained, okay, paper doll, much like a regular doll, but made out of paper. And so I explained how there's this when you get a paper doll. Usually, it comes on a piece of paper, and it could be usually not a thin, flimsy piece of paper.

Usually, something that's a bit more like tagboard or almost not quite cardboard, but a heavier weight paper. And then either they're perforated, and you punch them out on the dotted line, or you need to use a scissors, and the ones that I had when I was a kid were the scissors variety because my family didn't have a ton of money, so we got the cheaper ones. So you cut out on this bold black outline of this person, and then there are clothes that you could fold tabs over. The clothes stay on, and you could change the the doll's clothes and so on.

So I explain the concept of the paper doll. Okay, he's tracking. He gets it. He's like, okay, yes, I've never seen one, but I believe you that this thing exists.

Okay, so we've got the paper doll as the metaphor here. I said, okay, now imagine that is a big black heavy weight line around the figure that you're that that you cut on. Okay, okay, yeah, he's tracking that. And I said, now imagine, and I had a sharpie in my hand.

I said, imagine not not this sharpie, but the really wide sharpies. They're like two inches wide. Grocery stores will make big banners for their front windows using these really wide two-inch sharpies. I was like, okay, imagine I've got one of these two-inch sharpies in my hand.

You got it? He's like, yep. I said, okay, now I'm gonna draw the outline of your body. Says, yeah. okay all right now we have made the paper doll cut out line for you oh okay okay yeah he he gets it he gets it now this is and this is the magic of this tool the paper doll tool I said imagine that line around your body everything that's inside that line, that's your business.

Everything that's outside that line, that's not your business. At a certain point, if you have coached and trained and done everything in your ability to try to get this person to change, to try to get this employee to do the thing the right way, you still hit an impasse. That's no longer your business, and you need to cut yourself free and absolve yourself from any guilt or failing or shortcoming or whatever it is that you are experiencing, because that which is outside the line, that is another person's choices. That is their willingness to change.

That is their resistance. But it is not your business if you have done everything within your power to coach them and train them and get them to do their job right. Now I watched as my response sort of washed over this person. I felt like I could see a visceral change.

I was giving him permission to say enough. I've tried everything I know how to do. I'm not going to do this anymore. Now that doesn't mean he'll never bring it up again.

This is a performance issue, a legitimate performance issue. So certainly he will bring it up again, but he does not have to keep himself awake at night, racking his racking his brain or searching the internet for what is the one missing tool that I have not yet tried yet that might get this employee to change their performance and change their behavior. Now, after I shared the paperwell tool, I looked around the room, and there were several other people like breathing a sigh of relief. In fact, there's one other person who we'd had a conversation during one of the breaks that I think they were up against a similar thing, where they had coached two employees who were having a disagreement as many ways as he could, and I think he was also going like, "Oh, I can use that paper doll tool.

I think I've done everything within my purview to try to fix this, and there's nothing left for me to do. Now, again, as I looked around the room to see how this was all landing, and it was landing with great relief, and I looked to the director of the team, and she smiled at me and she nodded, and so I gave her the floor for just a second, and she said, "Yes, that is the right call. You have permission to let this go. And as the facilitator, I felt like I was absolutely on track, and that this was the right thing to do.

But it was incredibly comforting for me and validating for me to have that senior leader's backup in this particular case, because after all, I was working with their people, and I'm sure that that director knew some of the dynamics of who exactly was involved. You see, as the outsider, when I come in, I don't know any of the specific context, the specific details of any particular situation where a manager might be struggling with with an employee, and so it gives me the freedom to not be attached to the personal outcome, and I mean, not not that I'm not attached to the personal outcomes. I want to see the managers make good decisions. I want to see the managers be excellent leaders, but I don't know the particular ins and outs in the same way that the people in the room do.

So I have a certain freedom to address it as an outsider and give a perspective that somebody who is an insider might not necessarily go to first. Okay, so now you know how the paper doll works. There's that thick black line that separates you and what you have control over from everything outside of you. So everything that's outside of you-that's someone else's business, other people's choices, other people's willingness to change, other people's resistance to the coaching and the feedback that you give them.

That's not your business. And after you have reached your threshold of trying everything that you know how to do, then you get to draw that imaginary line and and step away from it. Give yourself some freedom from it. Now, this is not about washing your hands of the problem or of the person.

It's not well. That's not my problem anymore. That's not what we're doing here. This is a precise and intentional act of recognizing where your jurisdiction ends, because you have tried everything within your power.

You are responsible for giving clear feedback. You are responsible for providing support. You are responsible for creating the conditions for that employee's growth, but you are not responsible for whether another adult chooses to grow. Let me just repeat that line again: You are not responsible for whether another adult chooses to grow.

You see, when you've genuinely done all of that, you've genuinely given the direction, given the coaching, referred to outside resources, given all of the training that's available. When you've genuinely done all that, then you'll know that it's time for the paper doll experience for yourself because the paper doll gives you the structure to draw that line and to stop. Now it doesn't mean you're going to stop coaching them. You might still give them the coaching, but you're not going to be banging your head against that brick wall anymore.

You're going to say, "I know where my instruction and my coaching ends, and I know where it's their responsibility to then take it on. You're defining that boundary. All right, now I want to walk you through a framework so that you know exactly how to use this because you don't get to use this every time you feel frustrated with somebody, unfortunately, okay, there is a threshold at which it makes sense to use this. So let's walk through this as a process.

Let's walk through this as a framework. First of all, you need to name the ceiling for yourself. Not every performance gap is a coaching opportunity. Some gaps are structural.

Some gaps are dispositional. Some are simply outside what this person is willing to do, and that is their choice to make. But it is not your choice to override, as in this case, where this manager had tried everything and could not override the employee's choice. So when you call that a ceiling instead of a failure, instead of especially your personal failure, you you're just simply saying we have reached the ceiling of what I am able to do, what I am willing to do, and obviously what this employee is willing to do as well.

And when you call it a ceiling instead of a failure, your relationship to it changes completely. You stop banging your head against it. You just say, "I have reached the ceiling on what I can do in this situation, and perhaps the employee has reached the ceiling on what they're willing to do as well. Okay, so you've reached, you've figured out that ceiling framework for yourself.

Now you're going to run an audit. So before you give yourself permission to stop, before you draw your paper doll line, you need to know what you have genuinely tried. So I want you to walk through everything you've done, and in fact, it might not hurt to jot down a quick list, or it might be a very long list. Everything you've tried, what feedback have you given?

In what form have you given the feedback? How many times have you given the feedback? Have you given coaching with what type of support structure and what type of tools? Maybe you need to bring an outside coach in to work with this person.

Maybe you need to refer them to an employee assistance program where there's additional structures and additional support. Maybe this is something where you've reached out to your human resources business partner to get some additional ideas, or you've talked to your own manager to get some more ideas, or other peers who maybe have had similar situations. So, what are all the things that you have done? Make that list, and when you can answer the questions of all the things that you've done, and you've made that list, your list is real, and your list is complete, and there's nothing else that you can think of.

Well, then you have done your job, and right there, I just felt my shoulders relaxing a little bit as I said that. When you have exhausted every possible option, you have overturned every rock and looked to see what was under it. You've done your job. The audit is complete, and this audit is not necessarily about justifying yourself.

It's about knowing is there any rock left unturned. If so, let's try that first before I draw my paper doll line around myself and absolve myself from responsibility for this other person's behavior. I mean, you don't have responsibility for the other person's behavior anyway, but you have done everything you can to influence that behavior. So, if you run the audit and you have an exhaustive list of everything that you have tried, and you can't think of anything else.

Now it's time to move on to step three, and that is to draw the line. This is your paper doll moment. So again, picture that paper doll, that thick black line that separates the doll from the rest of the paper. Draw that imaginary line around yourself.

Everything that's inside the line-that's your business. Your effort, your clarity, your decisions, your leadership-all the things you've already tried-that's your business. Everything outside the line-that's not your business. Another person's willingness to change, their motivation, their choices, their sticktoitiveness, their perseverance on it, their follow through.

If you've done your job, that becomes their business. That is their business. So the paper doll is a tool that you can come back to at any time, not just in this situation where you have an employee who won't follow through on something. It's any time you find yourself exhausted by something that you cannot control, and you've taken all the steps within your own purview to do what should be done.

You can also use this when you realize that you've drifted so far into somebody else's business and you're trying to get them to change that you've lost track of your own business. That's another good time to draw the line around yourself. Come back inside and say, "I've done everything I could. I've explained the situation.

I've reasoned with them. I've tried. You know what? It's no longer my business.

That's their business because it's outside the line. Again, just when I say that and I point outside the line, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm pointing outside the line of myself, and I'm wearing a black T-shirt today because I was thinking about this episode this morning as I was selecting my level. Technically, it was last night when I selected my clothes because I went to the gym really early this morning. But anyway, I knew I was going to be recording this episode, and so I wore a black T-shirt.

So anything that happens outside that line, that's not your business. And my shoulders drop, and I relax just a little bit. Okay, and the fourth part of this is radical acceptance. Letting go of the coaching doesn't mean abandoning the employee.

It means accepting the current state of their capabilities in this area. Whether it is their capabilities to do the job, because you might know that they technically can do the job, they're just choosing not to. It means accepting the current state of their capabilities and their willingness to put those capabilities into play, and you're doing this clearly, honestly, with your eyes wide open, and you're managing accordingly. It might mean structuring around that gap if that's work that needs to get done, and that employee isn't getting it done to performance level or isn't doing it at all, it might mean an honest conversation about what's possible for their future in that role or with your organization.

It probably means it's going to continue to come up every year in their performance evaluation and other times throughout the year as well when the work isn't getting done at all or to the level it needs to get done, but it's a different posture than continuing to push on a door that isn't going to open. Your radical acceptance here of what's outside the paper doll line and what's inside the paper doll line will give you freedom. Yes, it will give you freedom. Now, along the way, what you're doing is you're protecting your bandwidth.

Every hour that you try to that you spend trying to change something that won't change is an hour that you're not spending on someone who will respond, and that's a hard leadership cost. The employees who are growing, who are engaged, who are ready, who are willing to accept the coaching, change the performance, learn the tools, put them in play. Well, they deserve your energy too. So letting go about this one thing with this one employee isn't giving up.

It's not giving up on that other on that employee, and it's not giving up at all. It's making a deliberate choice about where your investment is actually going to yield something, where your investment of time and coaching and managing and supervising and all of those things, where that will actually move the needle, and that's where I want you to be spending your time on things that move the needle. Okay, so here's your call to action. This is how you're going to put it to work because this is the segment that we call "Put It to Work.

So this week, I want you to think about one situation that you keep circling. Could be in your personal life, could be in your professional life, but one thing where you've tried the same things and hoped for a different result, or maybe you've tried many, many, many things and hoped for a different result, and that result just doesn't materialize. Here's what I want you to do: run the audit, write it down, write down all the things that you've tried and what the results have been, and what support that you've tried that's outside of all the things that you knew knew how to do, and if that list is real and complete, then know that you've done your job, and it's time to draw the imaginary line. So step two is draw that imaginary line.

I promise you, it helps. Everything inside the line is yours. Everything outside the line that's not your business. Your job isn't to fix everyone and everything.

Your job is to lead well, and lead with intention, and lead with integrity. And sometimes leading well means knowing when to stop. And so, my friends, that is how you're going to put it to work, and you're going to have radical acceptance of what happens next. You're going to recognize the situation, run the audit, draw the imaginary line, and then have radical acceptance of your decision.

All right, my friends. I hope the paper doll tool gives you some sense of freedom in some aspect of your professional life, whether that's managing the work of others, whether that is a you know an abrasive situation, a conflict with an employee that with with a coworker that just doesn't seem to resolve, or maybe it's just something in your personal life that you have circled and circled and circled, and you have tried all the things that you know how to do to influence and change the situation. Use the paper doll tool to absolve yourself of beating your head against that brick wall of pushing against a door that just won't open, my friends. Put it to work this week, and I hope it brings you some freedom and some absolution from a situation that's been troubling you.

All right, my friends, be well, and if this episode inspires you to take some action yourself, then I have one request, and that is to share this episode with somebody else who might be circling something that just isn't going to change. It's going to help them. It's going to help you because you know that you contributed to somebody, and it's also going to help me because it's going to help somebody else find my podcast who didn't know about it before, and I thank you for that in advance. Okay, my friends, be well.

Have an amazing week, and I'll catch you right back here on the Working Conversations podcast next week.

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