Leader's Beacon | The Leadership Experts

Today we look at the one or two bottom performing employees you might have on your team or in your company. It could be job performance related or it could be negativity or behavior problems. Can they be ‘fixed’ or should you let them go and move forward with hiring a replacement?

An HR Manager shared with me they as she looked back on all the people they had put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) most ended up being terminated either in the short term or the long term. Does that mean we should just go ahead and pull the plug on poor performers? Can any be salvaged?

Another manager who was frustrated with an employee who had gone completely sour lamented that he had no doubt the person could be fixed but the amount of time, energy and therapy (his words) was too much for the company to invest.

In the Front Line Leadership course I ask supervisors and team leaders to reflect on whether they have ever seen an employee who struggled to perform under one boss subsequently improve after being transferred to another department. Virtually everyone in the class had to acknowledge that they have indeed seen this happen.

Prison of Performance

While the reasons an employee’s performance can slip below expectations are many, the leader has to be careful not to trap the employee in a performance prison from which he or she cannot escape. Once the boss labels the employee as a poor performer in the boss’ mind the leader may not be able to see the employee do anything right. Therefore the boss continues to see only the negatives and provides only negative feedback.

Escaping the Prison of Performance

Using a progressive disciplinary process can send a signal to the employee that there will be consequences for unacceptable behavior. The leader however needs to quickly acknowledge any improvement in behavior and provide positive feedback. In this way, the employee will see that the leader is willing to acknowledge strengths, giving the employee hope for success.

Putting Ideas into Action

• Confront employees about performance and behavior that you find unacceptable. Provide consequences.
• When you see them doing something right, acknowledge it and build on positives.
• Reflect on the fact that you as the leader may be causing the continuation of the very behavior you are trying to fix. Change yourself first and then see the employee change.
• If the employee does not improve after being given every opportunity do them a favor and terminate them so they can find a position that will be a better fit.

Leaders should allow employees an opportunity to rehabilitate, and only after a number of chances, terminate employment and start over with a new employee.

Other articles you might like:

• Making amends
• Labelling and Second Chances
• Leadership Malpractice
• When Achievers Stall

At a gut level we know that leadership is important and necessary. As I think back over the many bosses I worked for, only a small fraction exhibited good leadership skills. And those good bosses… I still think back fondly on how they helped me along my career path. Even the good ones were far from perfect, which shows the power of leadership is not in perfection, but is in being constructive.

By reading these emails, you are demonstrating your commitment to being a better leader each day. Why not send along a note to the leader you enjoyed working for and telling them how much you appreciated their support and encouragement.

Linking Leadership and Profitability

Turns out leadership isn’t just a feel good thing. It drives the bottom line. Two interesting findings came from a studyby Dr. Rob Cook from Human Synergistics International. He measured the correlation between profit margin and how constructive the culture of the organization was.

A constructive culture is one where there is a sense of achievement, challenge, growth, encouragement and humanistic relationships.

The first conclusion was that organizations with a constructive culture had sustained higher profit margins. In fact the more constructive the culture, the higher the profit margin and the more stable the profit over time.

The second conclusion was that aggressive cultures (very task/numbers driven without support/encouragement) had the most erratic profit margins. Some years it would go way up and other years it would come crashing down. You know the story… being aggressive can yield short term gains but in the long term, people burn out and leave and the numbers drop, often costing the aggressive manager his or her job.

As outside observers we see obvious links between operational outcomes and the strength or weakness of the leadership. It shows up in sales, customer complaints, scrap/rework, project delays, supplier relations, grievances/complaints, past due orders, waste, excess overtime, cost and profit. Share your thoughts with me.

Reflection Questions

How constructive is the leadership culture in your organization? When you consider the managers and supervisors in your operation, is there a link between those with weak leadership skills and poor results?

Action Items

• To get buy in from senior level decision makers, link leadership issues to the bottom line. Ask questions such as, “How much of that problem can be linked to leadership?” or, “It’s no wonder Bill is struggling, did we ever give him training on how to be a good supervisor?”
• Confront the unacceptable leadership behaviors and offer either training or coaching. We’ve found that only a small number of leaders are unsalvageable. Most can be turned around.
• Measure your existing culture versus the ideal culture and develop a game plan to be more constructive. (We offer a great measurement tool from Human Synergistics to do this.)

What if the leadership issue rests with you… or your boss? If it rests with you, now is a great time to make a personal commitment to improve. If the problem rests with your boss, then take the path of making observations, asking questions that cause him or her to reflect or, if you have the guts, confront the issue head on in private.

Other articles you might like:

• Employee Engagement: Getting an ROI Out of Your Most Valuable Asset
• How Well Do You Get Along?
• Want a Great Culture? Focus on these 3 things
• Three Keys to Exceptional Leadership
• Does the Final Score Define You?

Do you have some employees or co-workers who think of themselves as extra special, indispensible and untouchable? Their superior attitude often ticks off the people who work with them. So today we look at the right and wrong way to deal with prima donnas in the workplace.

Dealing With Prima Donnas at Work

Employees and co-workers with superior attitudes see the world revolving around them and expect everyone else to bow down and kiss up (or kiss butt) to get something done. While saying “pretty please with sugar on top” might be nice, it really shouldn’t be necessary to get the person to do their job.

A misguided view: Often the prima donna forgets that his or her job function exists to support another job function. A classic example in a manufacturing plant is that the maintenance department will act as though they are doing production a favor by fixing something that is broken down. In fact the maintenance department’s customer is production. They are supposed to keep the line running and improve flow and cycle time.

In the office, a prima donna might work in accounting, reception, engineering, sales, marketing or quality. The prima donna is often a good performer who has let his or her special talents inflate the ego instead of focusing on serving others.

Managers are reluctant to address this behavior because they are lulled into a sense of complacency and fear a backlash. Plus the manager likes the work done by the person. Overall performance is usually less than it could be because the prima donna doesn’t share information or expertise very well, preferring instead to use it as a competitive advantage.

Reflection Questions

Who are the prima donnas in your work group? How does this behavior impact you as the boss or co-worker?

What NOT to do

• Knock them down a peg. It really isn’t helpful to criticize or point out the person’s flaws or jump with glee when they make a mistake.
• Over inflate the ego. While it’s positive to provide praise, avoid use of the words, “You’re the best!”, “We couldn’t do it without you!”, “Too bad everyone else can’t be more like you!”

Action Items

• List the destructive consequences of having prima donnas in the workgroup.
• Recognize that low self esteem might be behind this behavior. The person may be compensating for a feeling of inadequacy by acting superior.
• Point out the specific behaviors (in private) that you want the person to stop doing. In many cases the person is likely unaware of how they are perceived.
• Encourage the individual to share his or her knowledge and skill with others and then provide positive feedback when they do that.
• Remind the individual who the customer is, their role in supporting the customer (internal or external) and that the overall success depends not on his or her individual talents but the overall capability of the group.

For some clients we have facilitated “team building” sessions to help groups realize that success depends on working together. If the prima donna is in a management or supervisory role then often one-on-one coaching is part of the solution.

Other articles you might like:

• 5 Ways to Deal with Know-it-Alls
• How Well Do You Get Along?
• 47 Ways to Build Valuable Connections … And Make Them Count!
• Negativity Saps Productivity
• Detoxing Your Corporate Culture

I was teaching a session to front line leaders this past week on how to coach, confront and correct employees when there is a gap between expected behavior and performance and the actual behavior and performance.

Understandably, confronting and correcting conversations are not easy on the leader or the employee which can result in procrastination, being too heavy handed or too vague in the feedback. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Success Disguised
• Employee Performance: Terminate or Rehabilitate?
• Making amends
• How Well Do You Get Along?
• 5 Ways to Re-energize and Refocus When You Feel Adrift

Gary Ridge, CEO of the highly successful company, WD-40 (the lubrication folks) believes that everyone in his firm should get an ‘A’ in goal achievement.

Their performance management process reflects this emphasis… Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Every Manager a Coach
• All the World’s a Stage…and Sometimes for Leaders too
• Leadership whack-a-mole?
• What’s Your Next Move?
• Employee Engagement in Action–an Example

In a previous post we examined a manager who was too easy on his team. In many cases an assignment will come in to work with a manager who has the opposite challenge – he or she is too tough on employees.

Often these hard-nosed managers tend to work long hours, do the work his team was supposed to do, be overly critical of others and not keep everyone informed. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Coaching a Manager Who is Too Easy
• How Safe Are Your Perceptions?
• How to Build Great Teams to Get the Job Done
• Accountability creates results and job satisfaction
• Assessing Team Communication

Busy, busy, busy. Rush, rush, rush.

Meet with team–call shipping–update spread sheet–check emails–meet with boss–finalize report–make two more calls–work on client presentation–attend strategy update meeting–write up the minutes–analyze production data–read market trend report–and on and on and on.

If you are right now saying to yourself this “this is my life,” you’re not alone. But our workdays are full not only of meetings and “to-do’s.” Look more closely. They are equally full of transitions…from one event or action to the next.

By neglecting these transitions–heck, we aren’t even aware of them–we miss a golden opportunity to maintain focus, save time, and reduce stress. In our rush…

• We fail to clarify our desired outcomes from each meeting/activity, so we are not as focused and productive as we could be.
• We often have to cycle back to complete an agenda item, get clarification on what was agreed upon, or ask that one question we forgot to ask.
• We aren’t prepared, emotionally and psychologically, for the next event. For example, fresh from a tough meeting with our boss we meet with one of our customers but can’t seem to concentrate on what she is saying.

This syndrome comes up frequently in my executive coaching. Here are three things you can do to leverage the transitions in your day:

1. Where possible, build in a 5-10 minute buffer between one event/task and the next. So, the meeting scheduled for 2:00 PM actually starts, for you, at 1:50.
2. Consciously wind down the task you are on (e.g. close the Excel application for the spread sheet you were working on) and shift your mind to the upcoming event.
3. Get your head around this event by preparing your thoughts and clarifying what you want to achieve, what you want to say, etc.

If you do this, you will arrive at the meeting or phone call or start the new task mentally focused and “present” to make it a productive use of your time. Try this out. At first you will feel like you are just spending more time but in fact will be saving a lot. Sometimes less is more.

Other articles you might like:

• What Does Your Opportunity Look Like?
• Do your employees have clear expectations?
• Talent Magnets
• Job Squeeze Is Real. Talk about it
• All the World’s a Stage…and Sometimes for Leaders too

The Plant Manager was becoming increasingly frustrated. His production manager was struggling to meet plant performance targets and was not getting his team to take ownership of achieving results. The initial diagnosis was that the production manager was being too easy on his team.

As with most management problems, only two or three behaviours cause the majority of aggravation and frustration. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Coaching a Manager Who is Too Tough
• Making amends
• Caught in the Chaos?
• Formal Strategic Planning Process
• Hiring “No-See’em” Salespeople

High achievers are prone to enter a time in their career where they plateau or stall. Perhaps promotions are not coming as fast and furious as they once did or in some cases, they have achieved every goal they have set and have run out of challenges. Achievers will ask themselves, “Is this all there is?” After striving for success, when success levels out, the feeling of advancement is replaced by a feeling of stagnation. This condition could be called Achievers Depression or Career Stall. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Employee Performance: Terminate or Rehabilitate?
• What’s Your Current Edge for Development?
• Talent Magnets
• All the World’s a Stage…and Sometimes for Leaders too
• Learning Curve or Incompetence?

Accountability becomes mission-critical in challenging times. We need everyone in our organization to take ownership of results and make things happen. Creating an environment of accountability rests with management. Based on our 22 years of experience in organizational development and leadership training, we have discovered that managers systematically remove accountability. As a result the manager themselves ends up shouldering all the responsibility and stress.

A lack of accountability in your organization causes the following problems:

• reduced profitability
• poor customer service
• silos and lack of cooperation between departments
• projects that fail to create intended results
• lack of personal growth for employees
• added stress and frustration for the manager

Cascading accountability

The manager is always accountable. The key leadership skill is to transfer portions of this accountability to individuals in the workgroup. If accountability is not transferred, then employees will potentially put the manager in jeopardy by not keeping their commitments. The manager then has to continually chase people to get things done, or take care of it themselves. Either way, the productivity and value created by the department will be below potential.

We crave accountability and we are afraid of it at the same time

Employees crave accountability because it creates a sense of accomplishment. They can take pride in owning the success that comes with the achievement. At the same time, employees are afraid that the punishment for not meeting objectives will be more severe than the possible praise that comes with a job well done. Managers can counteract this by shifting emphasis from catching mistakes to celebrating achievement. Once employees let go of the fear, they can step forward and create better results.

Micromanaging does not create accountability

Accountability comes when the manager makes it clear what the expected outcomes are and the boundaries and then lets the employees take ownership over how they achieve the outcomes. A manager may think that assigning job tasks is enough to create accountability. If the manager assigns a task and dictates how it must be done, then the accountability remains with the manager. If instead the manager describes the desired outcome and then gives employees the freedom to achieve the outcome using their own talents, the employee can be held accountable for results.

Accountability requires measurement, follow-up and consequences

Scorekeeping is a powerful way to have employees show one another and their manager whether they are achieving objectives. The scoreboard must be simple enough and visual enough that everyone can tell at a glance whether they are winning or losing. Public scorekeeping also taps into peer pressure. Most people do not want to let others down. Having peers able to see the performance of others gives each person the motivation to succeed and be part of the team.

Steps to Creating Greater Accountability

1. Be clear about the end results – customer satisfaction, elimination of wasted effort, safety, housekeeping and expense control.
2. Ask each employee on your team what they can do to help improve and positively impact the end results.
3. Avoid diluting the accountability – do not take back ownership of the task when the employee finds it difficult. Let them grow through the experience.
4. Track progress and allow the team to take credit for achieving the results.
5. Identify, correct and potentially weed out the team members who are not capable or motivated to achieve results.

Other articles you might like:

• Employees Listen With Their Eyes
• Want to Collaborate? Choose Your Level
• Coaching a Manager Who is Too Tough
• Employees who feel entitled
• A Framework For Performance Management

How leaders can impact employee’s motivation using the 4-Drive Theory

The 4-Drive Theory of Employee Motivation states that there are four main drives that motivate employees, these are the drives to: Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to be Challenged & Comprehend, and to Define & Defend. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Four Drive Model: New Theory on Employee Motivation
• How to achieve top motivation – a case study
• Rethinking the 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation
• The Drive To Bond and How We Screw It Up
• Employee Motivation – 9 Simple Tips for Managers

A client organization of mine has a culture that values measuring everything. This makes good business sense. It enables you to monitor, recalibrate and optimize your processes and results. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• A Framework For Performance Management
• The Last Sales Interview Question
• Leading With Purpose
• Every Manager a Coach
• Answer the ‘Why?’

A manager or supervisor’s job should be easier. After all, as long as you have the right people, the right materials, the right information and the right equipment, everything goes smoothly. For most of us this fairy tale scenario only happens on occasion. The rest of the time we are scrambling because one or two of the success elements is missing.

In fact it would be easy to simply react to whatever happens and never look past the immediate requirements. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Coaching a Manager Who is Too Easy
• Want a Great Culture? Focus on these 3 things
• Distractions and Reactions
• Develop Your Leadership Competence Asynchronously
• Leaders, Take A Slice of Humble Pie

You plan to drive your car from Boston to Denver. It’s a long trip so, before departing, you take your vehicle into your local service center for a tune-up. You have them check your tires and battery, top up the oil and brake fluid and take it for a spin on the highway listening for any rattles that should not be rattling. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Conflict and Change Co-exist
• Accelerate Your Growth with a Mastermind Group
• Don’t Clone Yourself
• Connecting With Your Body
• Root Causes of Conflicts In Work-Groups

This question has been studied for decades and no direct relationship has been established. Despite what would seem to be a slam-dunk connection, happier workers don’t necessarily result in a bumped up bottom line.

A recent study by researchers at Cornell, however, has mapped a path between the two. It is not a direct route. There are three intervening variables: Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Struggling Against the Invisible Bureaucracy of Organizational Culture
• Job Squeeze Is Real. Talk about it
• 47 Ways to Build Valuable Connections … And Make Them Count!
• Labelling and Second Chances
• 15 Proven Ways to Deal with Difficult People

City councils, boards of administrators and other governing systems demand a performance management framework that focuses on what outcomes employees will achieve, and how success is going to be measured. This tool reveals how to construct an integrated performance management framework that takes into account the many different functions which a city or a county needs to administer. Continue Reading

Other articles you might like:

• Formal Strategic Planning Process
• Leading With Purpose
• Oversight – A Tale of Leadership Lost
• Accountability creates results and job satisfaction
• Stressing Metrics Has a Downside