Dealing With Underperformers
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts
“They're not gonna thank you for firing them, but in the long run, maybe even in the short run, you're doing them a favor.”
— Mike Goldman
Underperformers
There are two types of underperformers: those at a C level and those at a toxic C level.
Underperformers at a C level fail to meet their productivity goals significantly.
Underperformers at a toxic C level may have high productivity but consistently disregard the core values and culture of the organization.
It is important to address underperformers to maintain a healthy work environment.
In the quarterly talent assessment, the options for dealing with underperformers are coaching or cutting the cord.
Coaching
Coaching is often seen as a solution for underperformers.
However, it is concerning when the problem has persisted for a long time without any coaching intervention.
It is important to address underperformance and its impact on culture and productivity.
Leaders should commit to either coaching the underperformer or considering termination.
Keeping underperformers for extended periods can be detrimental to the organization.
While everyone deserves coaching, addressing underperformance promptly and effectively is essential.
Loyalty - 1st Excuse
The first excuse is loyalty, based on the person's long tenure with the organization.
Loyalty to one person should not outweigh the negative impact on the rest of the team.
Keeping underperformers causes extra work for others and hinders the success of high-performing individuals.
Prioritizing loyalty to the underperformer over the well-being and productivity of the entire team is not justified.
Short- Staffed/ Too Busy - 2nd Excuse
The second excuse is being too busy and waiting for things to calm down. This is unrealistic because there will always be busyness and challenges.
Keeping an underperformer due to fear of being short-staffed negatively impacts overall productivity.
Keeping the underperformer diminishes the sense of urgency to find a better fit.
Removing the underperformer may increase productivity among other team members and potentially eliminate the need to fill the position.
Is it enough coaching? - 3rd Excuse
The third excuse is uncertainty about when to stop coaching.
Delaying the decision and making excuses harm both the leader and the organization.
Sometimes letting go of an underperforming employee can benefit them in finding a better fit.
People have different strengths and may excel in different roles or organizations.
Bell Shaped Curve - 4th Excuse
The fourth excuse is the belief that a company needs a bell-shaped curve of performance levels.
Some argue that having all A players would lead to higher salary demands and promotions for everyone, but in reality, having all A players leads to growth and promotes the organization.
The assumption that all employees will demand raises and promotions is not accurate.
The Legal Excuse - 5th Excuse
The legal excuse is a common reason for not taking swift action in addressing underperformers.
However, the fear of legal consequences shouldn't outweigh the negative impact on performance, morale, and culture caused by an underperformer.
The combination of these excuses ultimately stems from a fear of having difficult conversations and the personal discomfort it may cause.
Improve Your Talent Density
Hold your team accountable for addressing underperformers and prevent prolonged underperformer stories.
Aim to improve your talent density, which is calculated by subtracting the percentage of C players from the percentage of A players in your organization.
Keeping C players and toxic C players harms talent density, so coach them to improve or make the decision to let them go.
Prioritize working on your talent and taking action to enhance your organization's overall performance.
Thanks for listening!
Apply for a free coaching call with me
Get a Free Gift ⬇️
🆓 The limitless organization short video course
Connect with me
www.instagram.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.facebook.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldman10/
I invite you to assess your team In all these areas by taking an online 30-question assessment for both you and your team at
-
Today we're gonna talk a little bit more about talent. I can't imagine for a second, there's anything in your company more important than making sure you are improving the talent of your team, that you've got more folks performing at an A level less folks performing at what I call a C or a toxic C level.
I don't think we need any magic studies to tell us that if we have more talent on our team, we're gonna have a higher performing company. We're gonna have a company that is not only more lucrative and adding more value to the world, but it's gonna be a more interesting and fun workplace to be in.
So we need to improve our talent, and I just don't see companies spending enough time making sure they are hiring the right talent, keeping the right talent, coaching and developing the talent they have. Now. In a previous episode, we talked about what I call the quarterly talent assessment, a specific process and system to assess talent.
And figure out who is performing at an A level, a, B level, a C level, and a toxic C level. So we talked about all that and you can go back and watch that episode, but what I wanna talk specifically about here is what to do about underperformers and mistakes I see leaders make over and over again excuses.
I see leaders make over and over again. And man, I'm not sure that. There's many other things more damaging to a team than keeping under performers around without even, without either coaching them to become real solid performers or setting them free to go be an A player somewhere else. So let's talk about that a little bit.
When we talk about underperformers, and I'm gonna talk about two different types of underperformers folks that I say are performing at a C level, and folks I say are performing at a toxic C level. Again, for more watch the episode called the Quarterly Talent Assessment, but I'm gonna talk a little bit about it.
Here is folks that are performing at a C level are folks that are not. Meeting their productivity goals by a good amount. Folks that are really underperforming from a productivity standpoint, meaning they have certain goals of success, certain amount of revenue they're supposed to bring in or a certain amount of invoices they're supposed to process in a day, whatever it is, but they are significantly underperforming.
From a productivity standpoint, that's what I call a someone performing at a C level. Folks performing at a toxic C level might have a very high level of productivity, high or low, doesn't matter. What matters for the toxic C level is if they are consistently not living the core values of your organization.
If they're not a cultural fit, if they're hurting. The culture of your organization, if they are violating the non-negotiable core values and behaviors that you have as an organization. Those are folks that I believe, I don't care if they're highly productive, low productive, those are folks that are toxic to the organization.
So in the quarterly talent assessment, and I'm gonna start there, when we have someone performing at a C. Or a toxic C level, you have two choices. And I think those two choices are you're gonna coach or you're gonna cut the cord. Now, these are human beings. These are not post-it notes on a flip chart.
These are not names on a page they're human beings with families. And, it's hard to just say, we're gonna cut the cord on them. They deserve coaching. And what amazes me is when I find people that are either performing at a C level or a toxic C level, and I ask that leader, who that person reports to, are we coaching or cutting the cord?
They say, we've gotta coach. And that's fine, right? That's good. Or everybody deserves coaching. But then I say to them, well, how long has this problem been going on? And they might say nine months, 12 months, a year and a half. And I'm like, well, that's a long time and you still believe they need more coaching.
And the answer is, yeah, I really haven't talked to them about it yet. And that kills me that you could have someone around who is hurting your culture or hurting your ability to be productive as a team and you're just not coaching them. So, here's the accountability. Here's the commitment that I like to give my leadership teams is I will say, are you gonna coach that person or cut the cord?
And if they say, I'm gonna coach them, which again is wonderful, what are you coaching them on? Well, here's what I'm gonna come coach them on. Great. Well, you know, we do this talent assessment every quarter. So 90 days from now we're gonna come back again. And if that person is still performing at a C or a toxic C level and you still believe they need more coaching, three months later you might be the C player.
And that normally gets some oohs and ahs but we can't afford as an organization to have an underperformer be a story for 6, 9, 12, 18 months. And it happens all the time. So excuses are made that I haven't talked to 'em yet, and they need more coaching. Excuses are made to keep that person.
Sometimes they come back in and they artificially inflate the assessment and say, oh, now they're performing at a B level, knowing that's just because they're trying to avoid the difficult conversation. So everybody deserves coaching. But we can't afford to have underperformers as a longtime story within our organization.
And so I wanna talk about some of the excuses or, you know, reasons which are really excuses that people give for not taking the action they need to take. And I wanna try and rid you of those excuses so you could move forward and do what's right. For you, for your organization, and frankly even for the person that you need to cut the cord with.
So here are some of the excuses. The first one is loyalty. He's been with us for 10 years. He was here when times were tough. He was here when we just got started, man, you know, how could I get rid of him after 10 years? And I get loyalty is important. I respect that. But if you've got that in your head about one of your people, the question I'd ask you is, are you more loyal to this one person or to the other 50 that you're hurting by keeping that person around and causing extra work for you, so you can't afford to spend time with the folks that really deserve your time.
They're causing extra work for others. They're hurting above all else. They're hurting the folks performing at an A level who are wondering why you're keeping that person around cause you're hurting their ability to be great. So that loyalty reason, that loyalty excuse doesn't work cause you can't be more loyal to one person than you are to the other 50 on your team.
Second excuse people give is, well, we're really busy now. We're gonna be short staffed. Well saying we're really busy now. You know, I've heard we're gonna wait till things calm down. When have things ever calmed down? I mean, come on. Things don't you know, you wanna keep moving things forward.
You're gonna be busy. There's never gonna be a time where you say, ah, now things are kind of easy. It's okay. For us to be short-staffed. And the problem is if you keep that person, because if you lose them, you're gonna be short-staffed. What you're doing is you're actually hurting everybody else's productivity.
One of the things, one of the philosophies that I talked about in the quarterly talent assessment episode is one equals three, and that comes from Kip Tindel at their container. Store one equals three says one. Superstar performer equals the productivity of three mediocre performers, one equals three. So by keeping an underperformer around, you are actually hurting some of those superstar performers performance.
By keeping that underperformer around, you're hurting your ability to go out and find someone who may be three x more productive. By keeping that underperformer around, you are also lessening the sense of urgency. That you need to find a replacement. You've gotta rip off the bandaid. And in some cases, when you lose that underperformer and everybody else around them becomes more productive, you may even realize that you don't need to fill that spot.
Or maybe you need to fill it in a different way. Third excuse is how do I know if I've coached enough? Maybe they need more coaching. You know, I mean, have you tried everything? No. You will never try everything. But if you do your best to coach, that coaching shouldn't take nine, 12 months. Go coach 'em for 90 days.
If you don't see, they're starting to move up, at least from C to B. It's not working. You could always say maybe they need more coaching. But here's what I tell you. By delaying through all these excuses, don't worry. I've got a few more I'm gonna take you through. You are not only hurting yourself, you're hurting the organization.
You are hurting this employee that you're not cutting the cord on. Which sounds ridiculous, right? How are you, you're helping them by firing them. I actually believe in some cases you are. I had a situation many years ago when I owned a staffing and recruiting firm. I had a staffing supervisor working for me.
Now in that role, dotting eyes and crossing ts. The details are incredibly important. This woman I had working for me. Just was one of the most people kept making mistakes focused all over the place, but I gotta tell you, she could walk into a room of 20 people and 10 minutes later, walk out with 10 best friends.
She could talk to anyone. She was just amazing at building relationships. So I had to let her go, but she was never gonna be an A player. As a staffing supervisor in a different role. For her, it may have been a sales role, but in a different role. She would have the ability to fly. She would have the ability to be a superstar.
I truly believe that everyone has the ability to be an A player somewhere, and if it's not in your organization either because. Who they are is not consistent with your culture and your core values, or they just don't have the skills, the capabilities, the natural talents to do the job you want them to do at the highest level.
You're doing them a favor. They're not gonna look at it that way. Come on, they're not gonna thank you for firing them, but in the long run, maybe even in the short run, you're doing them a favor. By freeing them to go become an A-player somewhere else. So we talked about a few excuses, the loyalty, excuse, I'm gonna be short staffed, excuse, they need more coaching.
Excuse. The other excuse I get, and this one I can't believe is, we need a bell shaped curve. We can't afford to have all A players. We've gotta have some B players, we've gotta have some C players. That's just the way it is. We can't afford to have all A players, and that amazes me.
My response is, I mean, I get where they're coming from. The thought is, you know, if we have all A players, they're all gonna want raises, they're all gonna want promotions. We need some performers, you know, on all levels of the spectrum, because we can't afford to be paying people more, given everybody a promotion.
Well, that's just, fantasy land. That's not what happens. Now, number one, I promise you, if you've got all A players, you're gonna be able to afford to give everybody raises. You're gonna be growing so fast. You are gonna be promoting people cause you're gonna be building the organization. Now you may never have all A players and that's okay, but when people say, everybody's gonna want raises, everybody's gonna want promotions.
That's just not true. You can have an A player, accounts payable clerk that just has been an accounts payable clerk for the last 20 years. They wanna do it for the next 20 years. That's what they wanna do. And that's okay. Everybody is not looking for big raises, big promotions. That's just not true.
But again, if you did have all A players, trust me, your rate of growth is gonna be so fast, so fast, that's not gonna be a problem. The next excuse is the legal excuse. Now I get this one. You know, as a coach, I'm gonna challenge you and I challenge my clients to take action quickly. You know the philosophy of fire, fast, high, or slow.
And the excuse is while we talk to our attorney. And they're in a protected class. So we talked to our attorney and we need three warnings over X number of months, and then we put 'em on a performance improvement program and then we gotta check with 'em again and well, it's gonna take us nine, 12 months to fire.
Now I know in Europe there are some crazy rules that hurt your ability to move quickly on folks, but if you're at the United States, I get that your lawyers are trying to protect you. That's their job. They should be trying to protect you. They're giving you sound advice, but my question for you is the risk worth the impact on performance, the impact on morale, the impact on culture that this underperformer.
Is having. You cannot every time out of fear of being sued, just keep the wrong people around. Now, talk to your attorney. I'm not gonna give you legal advice, but what I'd say is your attorney is not worried about you growing your company. Your attorney is not looking at your net income. Your attorney is not looking at your rate of growth on revenue bring.
They're just looking to keep you out of court. That's their job. You've gotta balance that with your ability to build a great organization. And now all of these excuses together, in most cases are just about a fear of having the difficult conversation. I'm not sure there's a more difficult conversation than having to cut the cord on somebody having to fire somebody.
I get it. But let's be honest, when you fear that difficult conversation, that's about you. That's not about the other person. It's about how it's gonna make you feel. It's the fear you have of how they're gonna view you, or whether you are gonna say the wrong thing. And you know what? Suck it up. You owe it to yourself.
You owe it to the organization, you owe it to that employee. To have that difficult conversation. I can remember when I had that conversation way back with that staffing supervisor that worked for me. When I had the staffing firm. It was a tough conversation. She shed a tear or two, but I had that conversation and let her know that she had some amazing strengths that I couldn't take advantage of.
She could be a superstar salesperson somewhere. I didn't need a superstar salesperson. So she needed to find the right fit for her. That wasn't an easy conversation, but I needed to have that for me, for the team, and for her. So suck it up, have the difficult conversation. And the key to a lot of this is when you are assessing your talent, when you're doing this quarterly talent assessment that I recommend when you're figuring out who's performing at an A, B, C, toxic C level.
The key is accountability. The key is holding yourself accountable for doing the coaching You say you're gonna do, cause your goal is not to cut the cord. Your goal is to try to take these underperformers and make them over. Performers. Hold yourself accountable to coaching or cutting the cord. In the talent assessment, which is a discussion with your peers for about the folks, one level down, hold your peers accountable for coaching or cutting the cord.
And then if you are the CEO, or VP of sales or COO, hold your team accountable. Do not let these underperformer stories go on forever. You wanna improve your talent density. And talent density is your percent A players minus your percent C players. The most important thing you can do for your organization, for growth, for profitability, for fulfillment, for impact on the world.
The most important thing you can do is improve your talent density by keeping C players around. And toxic C players around, you're killing your talent density. Coach them, move them up to B players, A players, or cut the cord. Work on your talent. I promise you, you are gonna be a better organization for it.