All Episodes

October 19, 2022 • 15 mins

In today's episode, I help you dive deep into deciding whether or not to move on a poor performer and what you can do to ensure you're making the right decision.

We'll unpack the question, discuss strategies and give you practical tips to take away and apply back with your own team.

Contact Team Buffalo

  • Subscribe to our weekly newsletter full of leadership tips, tricks and tactics here
  • Check out our latest workshops and programs here
  • Email us at admin@teambuffalo.co

Thanks for listening!

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Travis Thomas (00:00):
Ahoy legend.
Welcome to another episode ofthe Team Buffalo podcast. I'm
your host, Travis Thomas.
Today's question is a little bitdifferent than what we've done
in past. And I think it's animportant question. As always,
we only do important questions.
But today's is a tricky one. Andthis comes out of a number of
conversations that have been hadover previous weeks and months

(00:22):
with various organizations andclients and coaching. And it is
around the question of how do Iknow it's time to move on a poor
performer? This is a bit of atheme lately, there have been
some things around poorperformance and bad ideas. But
this one specifically is aroundhow do I know? And then the
second part of that question ishow do I deal with getting rid

(00:45):
of someone who is a poorperformer? It's a major
challenge in for any leader thatreally cares about their people,
or is invested time and energyin their people, which is, of
course, you if you're listeningto this? How do you deal with
the guilt that comes with that?
Because that's a big thing. Youknow, you're affecting someone's

(01:07):
career, their livelihood, theirreputation, but you're also
affecting yours by not doing ordoing that said, action. So
let's unpick that a bit. Firstthing I asked leaders, when
they're in this scenario of do Ikeep or do I not keep this
person is? Well, what have youdone? Talk me through what
you've done. Tell me thejourney. If you're listening to

(01:29):
this, now, we're having this asa mock coaching session, I'd ask
you to go away and take sometime reflect on what am I done?
What's been the journey? Whathave I spoken to this person
about? What examples have Igiven them? How do I know that
their performance really ispoor, rather than it being
something else like me beingunclear as a leader or me not

(01:51):
giving explicit instructions orme not having clear goals to
provide them? But you reallywant to work through that
journey? And understand? Whatare the specific things that
happened? And what did I do tocoach them to change them to
provide support along the way?
So that's the first bit what'sthe journey that they've been
on? The second is, can theyunder any scenario, you could

(02:13):
see with any amount of coaching,any development, any workshops,
any anything that you couldreasonably, within budget wise
and time wise provide them?
Could they get better? Couldthey that's, that's a tricky
question that, do you if youstopped and you ask yourself,
honestly, do you think thisperson will improve? And I would

(02:35):
ask you that in a coachingsession, you might say, Well,
I'm not sure. So that I wouldsay, All right, we need to pause
this decision you're about tomake, and I need you to go to do
some reflection, and some realproblem solving. If you're not
sure if the person couldimprove, then you need to get
clear on what a plan to improvethat person could look like. You

(02:58):
have to how could you not, it'snot something that's negotiable.
Or you want to look back in ayear and go, I really, they're
doing so well, in this otherorganization. I'm happy for
them. But I wonder if I couldhave done something to make them
perform that way here. So ifyou're not sure that they could
improve, this is part of thesecond part, if you're not sure

(03:20):
if they could improve, you needto go away and be clear and
figure out what evidence youneed to have that clarity on if
they could. Now if the answer isyes, I think they could improve.
Great. So that takes you downpathway 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

(03:43):
plan that I came up with that Ithink will work and getting them
on track. And I'm going to dothe things required. And that
combination of things requiredcould be things like training,
they might need to go throughsome level of training,
mentoring and coaching.
Definitely coaching for me alongthe way, some interim goals. So
they'll just say, Hey, you'remissing your quarterly target.

(04:06):
Let's see how you go nextquarter, no interim goals, how
do we know if they're on trackthroughout that whole quarter
clarity and support mechanismsfor them where they can say, I'm
not sure about this, Iunderstand this is something you
want me to work on and improve,but I'm struggling with how to
fix it. Great. I'll providesupport and I'll set

(04:28):
expectations around when youcome to me for help. So that's
pathway a we set that that kindof journey and the expectations
and then we tell them we need tosee marked improvement by this
date. And we will be havingconversations along that weekly
or possibly fortnightly, butgenerally weekly, to see how
you're progressing against thosemeasurable targets that I've set

(04:50):
for you.
If the person has bad behaviorsthat you're saying, then the
measure is quite clear. We don'twant to see those bad behaviors.
We want to see them deep precentvolume to the point where they
don't exist anymore. That's pathA. And then depending on if they
achieve or don't achieve, thatthen takes us down path B, which

(05:12):
is the same path that you mightset down to begin with, if you
answered the question, secondquestion with, I don't think
they can ever get better? Well,if the answer is they can never
get better. And I know based oneverything I can see and all
their patterns and theirmotives, then I'm not going to
waste my time trying to pushthem I've already tried to pass

(05:32):
and they're not committed. Sopath A could lead to B, if they
don't adjust their behaviors, orB could be simply the thing that
you know, based on all theevidence you have and what your
gut is telling you. I mentionedgut and people have mixed
feelings about gut. But there'struth to this, your gut will
tell you something, you know,when a decision might feel a bit

(05:53):
scary, or a bit concerning, butyour gut is saying this is kind
of the right thing.
Alternatively, if your brain issaying you need to do this, and
your gut is going or I'm notsure I'm not quite sure this is
the right thing to do. They needto go Why is my gut instinct
telling me this isn't right. Sopay attention to that we do
literally feel those things inour gut. And it's our brain and

(06:13):
other parts of our body tryingto reconcile what we're about to
do logically, versus whatemotionally or maybe
subconsciously, we're aware ofas a factor in this decision. So
once your gut tells you thatthat's what you're going to do,
and you need to do it. How doyou do that? Now, you'd be
remiss not to have the bigconversation, the big
conversation is thatconversation where we sit the

(06:36):
person down, and we say, look,we've had this chat, we've
spoken a number of times aboutMiss performance, we have set
really clear goals, and wehaven't quite landed them. How
do you think you're going? Andthe person might say to you,
Well, okay, doesn't sound likeI'm doing very good. And like, I
don't think I'm doing very well.

(06:56):
Or they might say, I think I'mfine. I don't I don't think
there's a problem. And I thinkyou're exaggerating the problem.
In either scenario, once we'vegotten to a point where we've
already given them evidence,we've already had multiple
performance conversations, ourrole as a leader is no longer to
make them accept the details.
You know, whether or not someonebelieves they did the thing they

(07:17):
did, if the evidence is there,it's there. And so one of the
things I often say to leaders incoaching these specific
scenarios is do not go down intothe level of detail, it's not
necessary to argue back andforth over bits and pieces. It's
not there simply isn't, there'sno benefit to it, you're not
going to be happy, they're notgoing to be happy, you're

(07:38):
probably not going to land inagreement, by the end of that.
There's nothing great that comesout of that. So don't do it.
Now, obviously, if you've missedsome substantive things, and
they've got evidence thatactually they had been
performing well, you need todeal with that. But most likely,
they're just going to argue thenuance of well, yes, I might
have done this wrong. But I didthis a little bit better than

(08:01):
you're saying I'm doing it'slike, well, but you still
completely missed the target. Soit's kind of irrelevant. So you
have that big conversation, youask them how they think they're
going, you then lay out the kindof evidence of what you've seen
and where you think they areyour assessment. And then it's
the big question is, are the bigstatement, I should say is like,

(08:22):
I don't think this place isright for you in this role, you
know, in the current conditionsyou're in and the roles and the
targets. Given you cannot meetthose expectations, what do you
think some options are? What canwe do? And I think this is
interesting. People might say,well, I should just tell them
that they're not working, orthey should quit or whatever.

(08:43):
You could do that. But thenyou're forcing a hand and you
might get embroiled in stuff.
And then fireworks gets involvedbecause they think you're
following them or whatever else.
It's, there's an easier path tostart with. And the question is,
well, what could an alternativeto this be if this role, or this
project or this job or theseteam is not a good fit for you?

(09:04):
What are some alternativeoptions we could explore? And
I've seen things you'd beshocked to see, but I've seen
people put their hand up and sayactually, I want to move out of
projects and I just want tofocus on business as usual Bau
and I just want to be in anoperational role Cool No
worries. Let's look at is thatpossible? Can we make it work?
Are the goals something otherbehaviors the right way to

(09:27):
deliver on that? Others Michael,actually, need I need to be
knocked down from the skirt?
Yeah, I was taking a punt at asenior role or taking upon that
a project manager role and I'mnot fit for what was good to
learn and actually don't likethis type of work. So could I be
moved back to my old lower levelposition? Yep. Let's work

(09:48):
through that. If that positionis available, we can promote
someone else to take theircurrent role great.
Or they might say something tothe 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 isan actual service called
outplacement services. That'snot the name of a business, but

(10:08):
it is referred to asoutplacement services. And it's
this thing where we supportpeople in moving to the next job
helps them get their CV prepcoaches them on career decisions
and thinking about the careerthey want. And to help them
identify opportunities, you'dhave to pay for it as business.
You know, alternatively, youmight have some roles that you
recommend them for, but you needto be careful about putting your

(10:31):
name on those things. So it's,as we said, there, we've got the
opening of kind of, how's itgoing, What am I seeing? And
then what are the options fromthere. Now, if they're a poor
performer who doesn't thinkthey're a poor performer, those
options are going to be fairlylimited, and you're probably
going to have to tell them thehard truth. But if there's
someone who just can't getacross the line, they've tried

(10:53):
their best, but they reallyaren't cut for the role. That's
a different scenario. And thereason I flagged these with you
is because leadership is nuancedand contextual. If you do not
factor in the nuance, and thecontext of the things that
you're dealing with, you willuse too big of a brush to paint
things, or you will push peoplein a direction that actually
probably isn't the bestdirection and or is more painful

(11:16):
for you, as the leader to carrythat direction out. So get
really clear on what's thenuance there, is there a
performance issue because ofwill because of skill, or
because of process, if it's aprocess problem with most, I
need to fix that if the processis poor, how is that their
fault, it's a skill issue, andI've tried to build the skill,
then, you know, we can't getthem to that level. That's why

(11:38):
some people are never going tobe the best engineer, well, we
can't push them to be a betterengineer, if they're as good as
they can be. And they need tostep back down. But if we
haven't given them theopportunity to be skilled at
that thing, and we've promotedthem into it, then that's a
problem, of course. And then thethird one I mentioned was will.
So process skill, and will will,is very, very difficult to

(12:01):
change, you know, leadership andsome of the Guru books talk
about this notion of, you justneed to motivate people and give
them the purpose. Some people'smotivation is anarchy. Some
people's motivation is just purechaos, or to do the minimum or
to make a high salary and notreally give a shit about the
things around them. That's true,we know that like you can look

(12:21):
around anywhere in the world.
And you'll know that there aresome people who thrive on
anarchy, some people aresociopaths, if you have one of
those people in this role, youare not going to convince them
to be motivated to do the rightthing and to be good and tick
all the boxes, you're just notyou can if it works, that way,
we wouldn't have half theproblems we have in the world.
But it doesn't. People who arebuilt a certain way and who do

(12:44):
not have an affinity or interesttowards changing those
motivators to positive ones thatget them the right outcome are
never going to come around toyour way of thinking and to what
the position requires. So if youdiscover that the person has a
will problem, and they aregenuinely not interested in
changing their thinking andbehaviors, you need to force
their hand and you need to moveto act on that. Now, of course,

(13:07):
work with your HR partners workwith HR consultants, whatever
you need to do consult fair workto ensure that you follow the
correct framework for doingthat. But definitely, if you've
got someone on your team whojust doesn't want to play ball
and doesn't want to do the rightthing, you must act on that you
have a duty as a leader to therest of your team, to the

(13:27):
organization and to yourself todo that, for the right outcome.
So that's the question of how doyou ensure that you are dealing
with the performance issue andhaving a process to go through
that if you follow that processthat then resolve the second
point which I covered at thebeginning, which is how do I
reconcile and deal with thefeelings that come with us? The
feelings are dealt with, bybeing really clear on a process

(13:50):
and following that process to apoint where you can go you know,
I did everything I could. Itdidn't end in a happy way. But I
did the right thing. And I knowthat I did, as best I could as
the leader, and I don't thinkanyone could have done better
than I did it. Awesome. Well,that's been it for today's
topic. There's some useful tipsand tactics in there for you. If

(14:10):
you'd like more tools, tips andtactics, you can head over to
Teambuffalo.co/newsletter Andsubscribe for our weekly
content. Lots of great stuff inthere. And if you're not
following the podcast, be sureto subscribe and follow for more
of that. I look forward toseeing you in the next episode.
Stay awesome.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.