Can’t or Won’t?
To act or to suffer?
As managers, at some point we all
encounter an employee who frustrates us, and drains the life and energy out of the team.
When you are in this situation with someone, you know it in your heart that
you should act … particularly when they really annoy you … but you don’t act right away because you second guess yourself … and you keep thinking… they really do
some things very well… sometimes…
A colleague of mine shared this decision tree with me, and since then life has been easier. It makes it pretty clear what you should do, when you are stuck questioning yourself about whether or not to act.
Individual attitude impacts team performance a lot!
A key issue in either increasing or decreasing team performance is the attitude of the individuals. Think about each person on your team. Are they helping or hurting team performance?
If you come to the conclusion you have a “Won’t” on your team – someone who may be capable, but is fighting you at every turn, annoying others, being negative, checking in and out, working against what you are trying to do, or damning it with superficial support — here are some ideas for you. And even more here:
Reasons Managers don’t act
- The person has flashes of true brilliance, interspersed with being a drain, so you keep changing your mind about their value to the team.
- You are afraid to lose a person doing some work even if it’s they’re not the best
- They are doing work that you don’t know how to cover without them
- They have political support from elsewhere in the organization that may be hard to manage
- There is a “no replacement” rule and you don’t want to lose a headcount
- It’s hard. On any given day it’s easier to ignore the problem
- It’s not fun
- It takes time away from “real business”
- It’s legally complicated
Rewards for taking action
My experience has been 100% of the time, that getting a person out who won’t has a definitive positive impact:
- You will be more productive, as you will no longer waste time dealing with the variety of annoying, draining, damaging, needing to be corrected or re-worked, “not good enough”, or otherwise apologized-for issues that this person causes.
- The motivation and productivity of whole team goes up, even if they have to cover the work.
- Everyone feels the positive impact that results from the negative energy being removed.
- Your top performers stay motivated to keep performing because they see consequences being applied for not performing.
- You build trust with your team, by showing that good performance counts for something
- If you work with HR early, and position it with your boss and HR as a critical skill replacement, you will often get your replacement headcount,even if the rules say, No.
- Taking action reinforces your credibility.
This is the least fun part of management, but I bring it up from time to time because upgrading low performers has such a big impact on the success of your business, not to mention preserving your value – and your sanity.
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February 18th, 2009 at 5:52 am
There is one presumption, unfortunately often wrong: manager is sure that things, he wants from team are right and ways how he wants things them to do are right.
In many cases such a person, which is showing negativity has the reason and often the reason is that manager wants something wrong.
It could be in case the manager is pushing hard, but without clear targets, without metrics or – what is common problem – through processes, which are not defined right.
My experience is that american way of management is not to check with subordinates if the system is right, but just fire off complaining person.
By my opinion manager’s role is – besides others – to do everything to straight and clear path for his subordinates to do easier their job (rules, processes, responsibilities, interoperability with other units etc.). That is the FIRST job for managers.
Martin
February 18th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hi Martin, I couldn’t agree more with you that the first job of a manager is to make a productive working environment for his subordinates as you describe. Sometimes that includes removing a toxic individual.
A manager who refuses to hear input on a bad process, or unclear target is a bad manager – a topic for another article – which I will also write. (and they are not just americans!) thanks for your comment. Patty
March 9th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
[...] No Grey Area If your team members are not capable of delivering good enough work, it is your job to teach them. If they are un-teachable, it is your job to replace them and build a team that is capable of working at a higher level. There is really no grey area here. See also Can’t? or Wont? [...]
March 11th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Patty, it was this blog that I read some time ago that got me thinking about creating a high-performing team. I’ve taken some hard-headed decisions since then, and always had the support of my boss, the CEO of a public company. He, like you, have always advocated that we must strive to always have a very high-performing team. Now I listen to feedback across the organization on my team’s progress. I coach and correct, and refine, and learn myself on how to bring out the best in people. If the situation presents a team member who can’t learn in our environment, then a different one would suit him/her better. Thanks for writing these blogs. When’s your next workshop?