Awhile back, I came to know an executive with an unusually detached leadership style.  He ran the organization from afar, very insulated from the day-to-day.

One of the more peculiar processes in the organization was that this executive was the final interview for all key hires.  It was not really an interview, but a lecture about “what will get you fired here.”

I always advise leaders that, above all, they must be clear.  Clear about the strategy.  Clear about the values, and yes, even clear about what gets you fired.

So, leaders must define the standards of performance, and confront those who are not meeting it.  But in order for that process to work, the leaders must do the proper diagnostic.  They must determine WHY this person is underperforming.   There are many reasons why people underperform.  Let’s look at a few of them:

1.       The person is lazy and simply has no work ethic or motivation.  This is an easy decision.

2.       The person is in the wrong job.  This is a bit trickier.  Assess their potential contribution and explore the possibility of moving them to a different role – one that leverages their strengths.  I have seen people with one foot out the door become stars after the organization took the time to understand their strengths.

3.       There is bad chemistry with the manager.  Assuming that the person is a potential contributor, explore the possibility of transferring them to a different manager.  I have seen this make a huge difference, and have even experienced this myself.  I got a new boss … became a new man, and got promoted three times in the next year.

So, if you have someone who is not performing, do the diagnostic.  Understand the root causes of their underperformance.  Put an action plan in place to address them.  Maybe they will surprise you.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

Every organization has underperformers, but those that tolerate underperformance never reach their potential.

Since confronting underperformers is difficult, most organizations avoid it, procrastinating the conversation in hopes that the problem will solve itself.  It rarely does.

We advise our clients to identify the bottom performers at the beginning of every quarter.  These underperformers are put on a 90 day improvement plan.  Then, at the beginning of the next quarter, we evaluate whether the employee has made the necessary improvements.  If not, the answer is clear … we must confront the issue.

We call this process “Underperformance Management.”  Implementing it takes discipline and organizational will.  But the benefits are substantial:

• Your clients will thank you.  They have been the recipient of this underperformance, and will probably be thinking, “what took them so long?”

• Your star employees will thank you.  They have been carrying the extra load, fixing the underperformer’s mistakes.  This can be a significant de-motivator for high-performers.

• Your bottom line will thank you.  Investing your payroll dollars in top talent will reap big rewards.

More details on this process next week.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

Assessing talent is a rare skill. In fact, the ability to assess talent may be the rarest talent of all.

As we covered last week, high-performance organizations use a blend of self assessments, company assessments, customer assessments (including an employee’s internal customers) and external assessments.

Why?  Because people and organizations have blind spots in their assessments.  For example:

• People have weaknesses that they can’t see (or refuse to admit)

• Leaders have pre-conceived notions about what high-performers look like (often it is a mirror image of themselves)

• Organizations have cultural bias that casts aside people who don’t fit a certain mold

• Customers are actually not always right, and can wrongfully throw people under the bus

To avoid these kinds of issues, the best method is to assess talent, performance, and potential from a multi-dimensional perspective.  Use external assessments to provide unbiased and scientific input.  Standardize on a talent assessment inventory (such as Gallup’s Strengths-Finder or Hogan).

Building a high-performance organization takes high-performance talent.  Start applying this kind of rigorous, multi-dimensional thinking and you will be on your way.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

Developing the #One Team in your industry requires a rigorous and systematic approach to assessing talent.

Last week, I challenged you to assess the maximum potential contribution of each employee.

Assessment is a quest for truth to determine a person’s true performance and potential.  The process must confront the brutal facts, balanced with grace and sensitivity.

High-performance organizations use a blend of self assessments, company assessments, customer assessments (including an employee’s internal customers) and external assessments, as represented by the diagram below:

Too often, organizations (and employees) have inaccurate or incomplete assessments of their talent.  As the diagram clearly indicates, the truth lies somewhere in the overlap between all of these assessments.

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking … Accelerate Your Results.

I ask this question in every client engagement.

Answering it involves deep thinking about human behavior, organizational behavior, and management styles.

For an organization to become a true high-performer, it needs to have the best, most talented people possible. In addition, it needs people to perform at their best, contributing to the maximum of their potential.

It is clear from my work that most organizations unwittingly stifle motivation. They manage people in ways that cause them to disengage; destroying motivation, morale, and self-esteem.

Recently, I came across a great animation of a talk given by Daniel Pink, author of Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It is a fascinating 10 minute video, and you can watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

The Shift Points blog is designed for Fast Lane leaders who want to leave their competitors in the dust.

Shift Your Thinking. Accelerate Your Results.