Is Your A-Player in the Wrong Role?

You found your rockstar employee—the reliable, high-achiever who's great at their job. So you promoted them to a manager… and now they’re awful. In this candid episode of "What the Biz?!," Bridget Vector and Dan Prochko get honest about the pain of promoting the wrong person. Based on a post from a small business owner, they break down the reasons this happens and reveal a 3-step solution to fix it without losing a valuable employee or hurting your business.

You'll uncover:

• The trap of promoting an "A-player" into a role they may not be a good fit for or even want.
• How a lack of proper training and a leader's inability to let go and delegate are often the real reasons a promotion fails.
• Three paths forward: a lateral shift, redesigning the role to focus on their strengths, or having a painful but necessary off-ramp conversation.
• A simple but effective framework for how to have the difficult conversation with honesty and compassion, framing it around what's best for the employee.

Show Notes

In this episode, Bridget and Dan tackle a common dilemma for small business owners: what to do when you promote the wrong person.

Key Takeaways:

• The A-Player Fallacy: Don't assume that a high-achieving individual contributor will be a great manager. These are two different roles that require distinct skill sets .
• The Pitfalls of Promotion: Promotions often fail due to a lack of proper training and a leader's inability to delegate and allow for mistakes.
• Solution 1: Redesign the Role. Look for a way to redesign the employee's role to leverage their strengths, keep their new salary, and take away the management responsibilities .
• Solution 2: The Lateral Shift. Frame a move into a new, equally important role as a positive opportunity for the employee to contribute in a new way .
• Solution 3: The Honest Off-Ramp. If there is no other option, have a clear, honest conversation about parting ways. This is painful, but keeping someone in the wrong seat is harmful to them and the organization .
• The Hard Conversation: Brigitte provides a framework for the conversation: be honest, talk about their strengths, and reframe the issue as something that is pulling them away from the work they are amazing at.

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Hosts
Daniel Proczko - myPocketMarketing
Brigitte Vegter - Vegter Financial