Performance
I often hear business owners comment that it is hard to get rid of poor performers these days, but I have to disagree – I have never found it hard to exit a poor performer and if you do it right, they typically jump before they are pushed. I have learnt that when you appear to shoot a hostage – people then know you are serious. Let’s explore that.
First and foremost, we should always try to build, coach and develop our people to be successful – it’s what leaders do, but sometimes there are those who either don’t rise to the challenge or by the nature of their behaviour, they just don’t fit. Let’s look at these two categories of poor performance.
Underperformers
We need to set very clear expectations around their role, make it as black and white as possible for what their expected performance looks like. If you can, bring it back to the numbers, or a yes or no answer (have they done it or not?) – and then get them to agree to it.
The key then is to monitor this weekly, fortnightly or monthly as part of your regular check-in meetings. Even better, make it transparent for the whole team to see as mutual accountability is the best kind.
Then coach and support them to try and achieve the required performance and track how they are going. If they aren’t improving or aren’t performing it is then clear for everyone to see.
Having those Conversations
As an example, I became responsible for a site manager who had apparently been a below average performer for some time. He then exercised poor judgement and left his site during a construction activity with some risk during which time an incident occurred. The conversation was:
“Was this a high risk activity yes/no?”
“Yes”
“As Site Manager responsible for the site should you have been there? Yes/No?”
“Yes but….”
“No buts, you exercised poor judgement and should have been there. Next time…agreed?”
“Yes!”
Three weeks later another incident of poor judgement occurred. A similar discussion ensued. Result – he suddenly found another job.
While in this example (and I have many more) the person had resigned, everyone else in the team appeared to be under no illusion that people were going to be held accountable. They had two choices, improve and deliver performance as expected, or leave.
Toxic People & Core Values
So what about when someone is hitting the numbers but is just toxic in their behaviour? This is when good core values are paramount. Core values set the tone for how your people should behave. Your business should have a number of these that highlight how people should act safely, as a team, as an individual and how they should represent the brand. When you have good, agreed core values that are displayed in job descriptions and are celebrated, it becomes easy to hold people to these.
It takes courage to have the conversation, as it’s a bit subjective, they might be hurt or embarrassed, they won’t like you for it, but as a leader you must do it and say that their behaviour is unacceptable. Core values let you bring the behaviour back to an agreed reference-point. Without these, it is just your opinion.
The key here is twofold. Have the conversation at the time, just say “excuse me can I have a word, ………..”. You don’t need to be authoritarian or superior, you just need to state what happened and how that is unacceptable and doesn’t represent our core value of xyz.
Secondly, make a written note on a staff file so that there is a continual record of every time you have had these conversations. As one of my clients says, ‘build the war chest’, so that if they do get a lawyer involved you have a history of their performance. In my experience it seldom gets to this, and if it does the data does the talking. When people see you doing this, they know you are serious about the way they are expected to behave.
Build, train, coach and develop your people
For success as they will grow your business. But when people aren’t performing they need to see that there is a consequence.
Research by Winsborough shows that New Zealand businesses typically build soft cultures, but our talent expects us as leaders to deal with those who aren’t performing. So have the courage to have the conversations, take notes and occasionally you might need to ‘shoot a hostage’.
