What about how the good employees feel?

Time and time again I have witnessed companies spending untold hours of management time discussing poor performers. They debate whether to continue to employ the poor performer or terminate them. They consider how to communicate their dissatisfaction and how the employee will feel, respond, react to feedback. They are concerned with the impact a bad reaction from the poor employee might have on the company, co-workers, workflows. 

Some managers decide to ignore the issue, shunting projects and responsibilities away from the employee. In those cases, the employee essentially has less work to do but maintains the same salary while their co-workers are forced to pick up the slack. Other leaders decide to spend more time with the individual, hoping to coax the poor performer to better results, without establishing consequences for repeated bad behavior or continued poor results. This pulls the manager’s time and attention away from other employees and important projects. Some managers continue to meet and discuss the issue, gathering additional information from a variety of sources to confirm what they already know to be true, yet never actually take the necessary steps to address the issue until something happens that cannot be ignored and forces them to respond. 

In all these scenarios, the cost to the company is immense. If you were to measure the many hours of management time and attention, losses in productivity, and impact on co-workers you would see just how costly these types of behavior can be. But most of the time, these metrics are not considered. The poor performers continue to drain the company of resources, and the better performers continue to absorb the consequences of a lack of leadership.

If leaders spent one-tenth the amount of energy and resources on good employees that they do on poor performers, companies would flourish, productivity would increase, retention would improve, creativity would be enhanced, and, most importantly, good employees would have a profound sense of trust in and loyalty to their leaders. 

Why are managers so reluctant to confront poor performance? FEAR. Fear is one of the 5 core emotions and can paralyze action. Simultaneously, fear is a strong motivator and can incite action. Most often I find that managers are afraid they will say the wrong thing in the performance conversation and the company will be sued. They fear conflict - that the individual might react with tears (sadness), anger, or blaming the manager or others and the manager won’t know how to adequately respond. Just thinking about having the conversation creates a fear response - elevated heart rate, shallow breathing. A good practice at these times is to channel that fear away from the performance conversation and towards a fear of losing or de-motivating good employees. Think of the impact this might have on your team and your company. Be afraid that these employees will leave, quietly quit, or burn out. Then this same fear can motivate you to harness your leadership strength and take appropriate action. Your good employees will appreciate your efforts and reward you with loyalty.

This week, I challenge you to spend time with your good performers. Ask them how they are feeling. Listen to their ideas for improvements and genuinely take them into consideration. Offer them opportunities to develop their skills through training, job shadowing, stretch projects. Recognize their contributions in team meetings. Show them that they are valued. They deserve your time and attention.