When to Support Our People and When It’s Time for a Change
A quick word: After telling a friend that one of my 2024 goals is to have greater impact, she dared me to write and share an article weekly. Even though I published a book a couple of years ago and love writing, it’s still not super comfortable for me to put myself out there. So I accepted her dare as a means to confront my fears and serve my goals. I’m thankful for my clients who are inadvertently providing the subject matter for my writing. I figure if the one-on-one discussions are helpful, their written distillation may be useful to others too. So without further ado, here’s this week’s thought…
First, I’ll assert that a company’s culture is defined as the product of intentions supported by action. It’s a blending of the golden rule and George Patton’s “say what you mean and mean what you say”. If leadership’s actions are in line with their stated intentions, then that’s the culture. If the company’s stated intentions are not supported by their actions, then the result of that misalignment is the business’s actual culture, despite whatever the stated intentions might be.
Second, this article presupposes that a company has an intelligent and aligned way of hiring and training people.
That it’s clear on what its leadership competencies are for anyone at any level to be successful. A good example of this is whether or not the company actually values self-starting, initiative-seeking employees or if it really prefers people who simply follow instructions.
That it’s clear on the job descriptions it is using to measure candidates — but not job descriptions duct taped together from the internet or written in HRoglyphics by well-meaning people with no expertise in the hiring department. A good job description does more than act as an administrative failsafe in the event of a mishire. It actually provides clarity and direction to everyone involved in the hiring process about what the company is looking for in terms of prior experience, the actual job duties to be performed and clarification of the expectations for the person who eventually lands the job. Reading the job description before an interview is as important as reading the candidates resume.
That the people who interview candidates are properly trained to ask smart open-ended questions that give candidates the opportunity to tell stories about how they successfully deal with the various scenarios in the job description, how they personify the competencies and how they manage adversity, failure and learn from their experiences. I have no data to support this claim but I’m pretty sure that interviewing is one of the least effective skills young leaders possess and yet it’s so easily taught. Be clear on who you’re looking for, be really curious, listen carefully (and more than you speak).
That the person who eventually gets hired is given a thorough orientation to the company’s culture, communication channels, training and house rules (among other things). And it goes without saying that he or she will also receive whatever training the job requires in an intuitive, organized and verifiable way.
If your company doesn’t meet these criteria, it’s not too late to build them out. They’re vital for anyone in growth mode because they create greater efficiency, loyalty and brand stickiness while reducing turnover and employee acquisition costs. They’re scaling cornerstones. But either way, keep reading…
So in our case study, this company has a senior director who has seemingly lost their sparkle. They’re not performing as they had. They’re not achieving the same results. They’re not the brand ambassador they used to be. As time-crunched managers, we see this as an unwelcome distraction in a crowded landscape of competing priorities. As self-aware leaders we might wonder what went wrong. How did our excellent recruiting and training systems fail us? What are we missing?
A few years ago, Danny Meyer shared an inspired and intuitive re-interpretation of something I’d seen at Situational Leadership. His teaching became an eye-opening mainstay of our management development training program…
It goes something like this:
One way to look at our team members is to assess them in two categories; let’s call the first one “ability”, the quality of being competently able to do or make something or cause someone to do or make something, measured in terms of those who can and those who can’t. The other we can call “attitude” or “willingness”; the disposition or feeling with regard to a person (like a boss) or a thing (like a job), sometimes expressed in terms of those who will or who won’t.
If we were to plot our team members on a chart, it might look something like this:
Let’s take a look at our formerly sparkly director through this lens.
Is it that she will do the job but she can’t? Maybe she’s got new responsibilities or new systems to deal with that aren’t totally clear. Did we stretch her into a new role she wasn’t ready for? In this case, it likely comes down to training our falling star back to superstar status. And, if we find she’s come up against the Peter Principle, here’s a good chance to bring her back to job security before her self-esteem and career go belly up.
If he can do the job but he won’t, this is a golden opportunity to connect with him to find out what’s really going on. Maybe there’s overload shame, overachiever burnout/boredom or issues with a supervisor. Maybe there are overwhelming things happening outside work and he’d benefit from encouragement to take a personal day to sort things out . Getting curious about what’s caused the drop in willingness and providing a safe place to unload may demonstrate enough care to re-inspire him. Maybe there’s an intervention needed to resolve an unspoken conflict, mediation to sort out a misunderstanding or right a wrong. So many times, a team member’s simple and compounded unmet need snowballs into resentment and torpedoes their effectiveness. If, in the end, it’s just that his big picture desires for the job and/or life have changed and he’s no longer willing to meet the requirements, you’ll be able to part ways knowing that it wasn’t because of something the organization did or didn’t do.
If they can’t and won’t do the job required of them and you’ve done your due diligence, there’s a good chance you’ve made a bad hire. In this case, the quickest “high integrity exit” (another bit of wisdom from Danny) may be your best bet. It’s probably the moment to give them the freedom to explore a new path and for you to redirect precious time and attention to those who are performing and in need of on-going development and care. From the time we recognize the quadrant our team member is in, the clock starts ticking to get them (back) into “Can/Will” or to effectively move them on. The longer we wait to address the issues and take action, the more we are taking time away from our own best and highest use and from those on the team who deserve it most.
This model works at all levels of an organization. If you’ve been avoiding a crucial conversation or need help crafting a path forward for a key player in your organization, remember that kicking the can down the road isn’t going to solve the problem. Not only are you doing a disservice to your company and your team, you are sending a message to the entire organization that it’s ok to give tacit approval to performance issues. To say nothing of the fact that the longer this goes, the messier it will likely become. Again, we come back to culture; the product of intentions supported by action.