How to move on a poor performer

Ahoy legend. Welcome to another episode of the Team Buffalo podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas. Today's question is a little bit different than what we've done in past. And I think it's an important question. As always, we only do important questions. But today's is a tricky one. And this comes out of a number of conversations that have been had over previous weeks and months with various organizations and clients and coaching. And it is around the question of how do I know it's time to move on a poor performer? This is a bit of a theme lately, there have been some things around poor performance and bad ideas. But this one specifically is around how do I know? And then the second part of that question is how do I deal with getting rid of someone who is a poor performer? It's a major challenge in for any leader that really cares about their people, or is invested time and energy in their people, which is, of course, you if you're listening to this? How do you deal with the guilt that comes with that? Because that's a big thing. You know, you're affecting someone's career, their livelihood, their reputation, but you're also affecting yours by not doing or doing that said, action. So let's unpick that a bit. First thing I asked leaders, when they're in this scenario of do I keep or do I not keep this person is? Well, what have you done? Talk me through what you've done. Tell me the journey. If you're listening to this, now, we're having this as a mock coaching session, I'd ask you to go away and take some time reflect on what am I done? What's been the journey? What have I spoken to this person about? What examples have I given them? How do I know that their performance really is poor, rather than it being something else like me being unclear as a leader or me not giving explicit instructions or me not having clear goals to provide them? But you really want to work through that journey? And understand? What are the specific things that happened? And what did I do to coach them to change them to provide support along the way? So that's the first bit what's the journey that they've been on? The second is, can they under any scenario, you could see with any amount of coaching, any development, any workshops, any anything that you could reasonably, within budget wise and time wise provide them? Could they get better? Could they that's, that's a tricky question that, do you if you stopped and you ask yourself, honestly, do you think this person will improve? And I would ask you that in a coaching session, you might say, Well, I'm not sure. So that I would say, All right, we need to pause this decision you're about to make, and I need you to go to do some reflection, and some real problem solving. If you're not sure if the person could improve, then you need to get clear on what a plan to improve that person could look like. You have to how could you not, it's not something that's negotiable. Or you want to look back in a year and go, I really, they're doing so well, in this other organization. I'm happy for them. But I wonder if I could have done something to make them perform that way here. So if you're not sure that they could improve, this is part of the second part, if you're not sure if they could improve, you need to go away and be clear and figure out what evidence you need to have that clarity on if they could. Now if the answer is yes, I think they could improve. Great. So that takes you down pathway A which is I'm not going to move forward on performance, managing or getting rid of this person or whatever step on that, because I'm going to take that plan that I came up with that I think will work and getting them on track. And I'm going to do the things required. And that combination of things required could be things like training, they might need to go through some level of training, mentoring and coaching. Definitely coaching for me along the way, some interim goals. So they'll just say, Hey, you're missing your quarterly target. Let's see how you go next quarter, no interim goals, how do we know if they're on track throughout that whole quarter clarity and support mechanisms for them where they can say, I'm not sure about this, I understand this is something you want me to work on and improve, but I'm struggling with how to fix it. Great. I'll provide support and I'll set expectations around when you come to me for help. So that's pathway a we set that that kind of journey and the expectations and then we tell them we need to see marked improvement by this date. And we will be having conversations along that weekly or possibly fortnightly, but generally weekly, to see how you're progressing against those measurable targets that I've set for you. If the person has bad behaviors that you're saying, then the measure is quite clear. We don't want to see those bad behaviors. We want to see them deep precent volume to the point where they don't exist anymore. That's path A. And then depending on if they achieve or don't achieve, that then takes us down path B, which is the same path that you might set down to begin with, if you answered the question, second question with, I don't think they can ever get better? Well, if the answer is they can never get better. And I know based on everything I can see and all their patterns and their motives, then I'm not going to waste my time trying to push them I've already tried to pass and they're not committed. So path A could lead to B, if they don't adjust their behaviors, or B could be simply the thing that you know, based on all the evidence you have and what your gut is telling you. I mentioned gut and people have mixed feelings about gut. But there's truth to this, your gut will tell you something, you know, when a decision might feel a bit scary, or a bit concerning, but your gut is saying this is kind of the right thing. Alternatively, if your brain is saying you need to do this, and your gut is going or I'm not sure I'm not quite sure this is the right thing to do. They need to go Why is my gut instinct telling me this isn't right. So pay attention to that we do literally feel those things in our gut. And it's our brain and other parts of our body trying to reconcile what we're about to do logically, versus what emotionally or maybe subconsciously, we're aware of as a factor in this decision. So once your gut tells you that that's what you're going to do, and you need to do it. How do you do that? Now, you'd be remiss not to have the big conversation, the big conversation is that conversation where we sit the person down, and we say, look, we've had this chat, we've spoken a number of times about Miss performance, we have set really clear goals, and we haven't quite landed them. How do you think you're going? And the person might say to you, Well, okay, doesn't sound like I'm doing very good. And like, I don't think I'm doing very well. Or they might say, I think I'm fine. I don't I don't think there's a problem. And I think you're exaggerating the problem. In either scenario, once we've gotten to a point where we've already given them evidence, we've already had multiple performance conversations, our role as a leader is no longer to make them accept the details. You know, whether or not someone believes they did the thing they did, if the evidence is there, it's there. And so one of the things I often say to leaders in coaching these specific scenarios is do not go down into the level of detail, it's not necessary to argue back and forth over bits and pieces. It's not there simply isn't, there's no benefit to it, you're not going to be happy, they're not going to be happy, you're probably not going to land in agreement, by the end of that. There's nothing great that comes out of that. So don't do it. Now, obviously, if you've missed some substantive things, and they've got evidence that actually they had been performing well, you need to deal with that. But most likely, they're just going to argue the nuance of well, yes, I might have done this wrong. But I did this a little bit better than you're saying I'm doing it's like, well, but you still completely missed the target. So it's kind of irrelevant. So you have that big conversation, you ask them how they think they're going, you then lay out the kind of evidence of what you've seen and where you think they are your assessment. And then it's the big question is, are the big statement, I should say is like, I don't think this place is right for you in this role, you know, in the current conditions you're in and the roles and the targets. Given you cannot meet those expectations, what do you think some options are? What can we do? And I think this is interesting. People might say, well, I should just tell them that they're not working, or they should quit or whatever. You could do that. But then you're forcing a hand and you might get embroiled in stuff. And then fireworks gets involved because they think you're following them or whatever else. It's, there's an easier path to start with. And the question is, well, what could an alternative to this be if this role, or this project or this job or these team is not a good fit for you? What are some alternative options we could explore? And I've seen things you'd be shocked to see, but I've seen people put their hand up and say actually, I want to move out of projects and I just want to focus on business as usual Bau and I just want to be in an operational role Cool No worries. Let's look at is that possible? Can we make it work? Are the goals something other behaviors the right way to deliver on that? Others Michael, actually, need I need to be knocked down from the skirt? Yeah, I was taking a punt at a senior role or taking upon that a project manager role and I'm not fit for what was good to learn and actually don't like this type of work. So could I be moved back to my old lower level position? Yep. Let's work through that. If that position is available, we can promote someone else to take their current role great. Or they might say something to the effect of I I don't think I want to be here anymore. Okay, cool. Well, how can we help support you moving on there is an actual service called outplacement services. That's not the name of a business, but it is referred to as outplacement services. And it's this thing where we support people in moving to the next job helps them get their CV prep coaches them on career decisions and thinking about the career they want. And to help them identify opportunities, you'd have to pay for it as business. You know, alternatively, you might have some roles that you recommend them for, but you need to be careful about putting your name on those things. So it's, as we said, there, we've got the opening of kind of, how's it going, What am I seeing? And then what are the options from there. Now, if they're a poor performer who doesn't think they're a poor performer, those options are going to be fairly limited, and you're probably going to have to tell them the hard truth. But if there's someone who just can't get across the line, they've tried their best, but they really aren't cut for the role. That's a different scenario. And the reason I flagged these with you is because leadership is nuanced and contextual. If you do not factor in the nuance, and the context of the things that you're dealing with, you will use too big of a brush to paint things, or you will push people in a direction that actually probably isn't the best direction and or is more painful for you, as the leader to carry that direction out. So get really clear on what's the nuance there, is there a performance issue because of will because of skill, or because of process, if it's a process problem with most, I need to fix that if the process is poor, how is that their fault, it's a skill issue, and I've tried to build the skill, then, you know, we can't get them to that level. That's why some people are never going to be the best engineer, well, we can't push them to be a better engineer, if they're as good as they can be. And they need to step back down. But if we haven't given them the opportunity to be skilled at that thing, and we've promoted them into it, then that's a problem, of course. And then the third one I mentioned was will. So process skill, and will will, is very, very difficult to change, you know, leadership and some of the Guru books talk about this notion of, you just need to motivate people and give them the purpose. Some people's motivation is anarchy. Some people's motivation is just pure chaos, or to do the minimum or to make a high salary and not really give a shit about the things around them. That's true, we know that like you can look around anywhere in the world. And you'll know that there are some people who thrive on anarchy, some people are sociopaths, if you have one of those people in this role, you are not going to convince them to be motivated to do the right thing and to be good and tick all the boxes, you're just not you can if it works, that way, we wouldn't have half the problems we have in the world. But it doesn't. People who are built a certain way and who do not have an affinity or interest towards changing those motivators to positive ones that get them the right outcome are never going to come around to your way of thinking and to what the position requires. So if you discover that the person has a will problem, and they are genuinely not interested in changing their thinking and behaviors, you need to force their hand and you need to move to act on that. Now, of course, work with your HR partners work with HR consultants, whatever you need to do consult fair work to ensure that you follow the correct framework for doing that. But definitely, if you've got someone on your team who just doesn't want to play ball and doesn't want to do the right thing, you must act on that you have a duty as a leader to the rest of your team, to the organization and to yourself to do that, for the right outcome. So that's the question of how do you ensure that you are dealing with the performance issue and having a process to go through that if you follow that process that then resolve the second point which I covered at the beginning, which is how do I reconcile and deal with the feelings that come with us? The feelings are dealt with, by being really clear on a process and following that process to a point where you can go you know, I did everything I could. It didn't end in a happy way. But I did the right thing. And I know that I did, as best I could as the leader, and I don't think anyone could have done better than I did it. Awesome. Well, that's been it for today's topic. There's some useful tips and tactics in there for you. If you'd like more tools, tips and tactics, you can head over to Teambuffalo.co/newsletter And subscribe for our weekly content. Lots of great stuff in there. And if you're not following the podcast, be sure to subscribe and follow for more of that. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Stay awesome.