Before you label a struggling coworker careless, ask one humane question: “What is making this hard right now?” That question can uncover facts, protect trust, and help you respond with wisdom instead of assumption.
In Vienna in 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis faced a pattern he could not dismiss. Women in one maternity clinic were dying of childbed fever far more often than women in another clinic at the same hospital. A quick judgment might have blamed the patients, the mothers’ choices, or the people providing care. Semmelweis kept looking.
When his colleague Jakob Kolletschka died after an injury during an autopsy, Semmelweis saw a possible connection between Kolletschka’s illness and the deaths in the clinic. He required doctors to wash their hands with a chlorinated solution before examining patients. Deaths fell sharply. His later book, The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, records his argument and evidence.
The point is not that every missed deadline hides a crisis. It is that an obvious explanation can be wrong. Before you decide someone does not care, make room for the information you do not yet have.
The story you tell yourself changes your response
A coworker arrives late to a meeting, submits incomplete work, or goes quiet after agreeing to help. The mind fills the silence quickly: careless, unprepared, disengaged, difficult.
Those labels feel efficient because they turn uncertainty into a conclusion. They can also make the next conversation colder before it begins. If you assume bad character, you are more likely to speak with accusation than curiosity. The other person may then protect themselves, say less, and confirm your original suspicion.
Scripture urges a slower path. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). Listening does not erase responsibility. It gives responsibility a fair hearing.
Semmelweis did not stop at the first explanation for a serious problem. In a workplace, the stakes are usually smaller, but the habit matters. Ask what changed. Ask what support is missing. Ask whether the assignment, expectation, or timeline was understood the same way by everyone involved.
Start with one question that leaves room for truth
Try a question that names the work without assigning a motive:
“I noticed the report is still incomplete. What got in the way?”
The wording matters. “Why did you fail to finish this?” invites a defense. “What got in the way?” invites context. The answer may reveal a family emergency, conflicting priorities, unclear ownership, missing access, illness, overload, or a mistake the person already regrets.
Sometimes the answer will be uncomfortable. A coworker may say they forgot, made a poor choice, or did not know how to do the task. That is still useful. You can address the actual issue instead of correcting an imagined one.
Proverbs 18:13 warns against answering before listening. In practice, that can mean waiting through the first explanation rather than rushing to fix it. You may need a second question: “What would help you complete the next step?” Or: “What agreement should we make so this does not surprise the team again?”
Humility makes accountability more useful
Guidance requires both personal discernment and community. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline points toward discernment practiced with humility, testing, wisdom, and accountability. Bring that posture into a difficult work conversation.
Humility does not require pretending poor work caused no harm. It means admitting that you see only part of the picture. Accountability then becomes more concrete: clarify the standard, agree on the next action, and decide when you will check in again.
Avoid making a promise you cannot keep. If the work is urgent, say so plainly. If you need to reassign part of it, explain the reason without turning the conversation into public punishment. If a pattern continues, document the facts and involve the right person. Compassion and clear boundaries can stand together.
This is especially important when someone’s struggle touches grief, trauma, health, poverty, or caregiving. A manager or teammate cannot diagnose those experiences, and cannot solve every circumstance. You can still ask with care, listen without prying, and respond fairly to the work in front of you.
Practice curiosity before the next correction
Semmelweis’s question led him away from blame and toward a change in practice. Your question may lead somewhere simpler: a clearer brief, a revised deadline, help from another teammate, or an honest conversation about capacity.
Before your next correction, pause long enough to separate what you observed from the story you added. Write down the fact: “The client email was not sent.” Then ask the humane question before attaching a character judgment.
You may still need to make a hard decision. But you will make it with more truth in view, and you will give the other person a chance to be known as more than their worst recent moment.
Comments
No comments yet.