Too good to fire... Not good enough to promote...

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Ahoy,

The team is doing well, they get on with each other, they deliver results as a team.

But one person just isn’t quite pulling their weight…

They’re not terrible! Just not at the same standard as everyone else.

How do we deal with this?

This is actually a fairly common scenario. I know during these things I tend to talk more about more general leadership advice or when things are going really badly, but I guarantee every leader will face a similar situation to this.

So that’s what we’ll be diving into today!

This middle ground is quite dangerous.

Usually people will find people like this and allow them to sit in this position forever. They’re not bad enough to fire, but not good enough to eventually promote.

It’s a dangerous middle ground that can breed complacency and lower standards within your team.

The answer here is not to fire them.

I just want to make it really clear that I’m not saying you need to identify anyone that’s not a high performer and get rid of them!

We need to just help bring them up.

And if your team is filled with others performing really well, then this actually shouldn’t be too hard. You can use the rest of your team to help bring them up to standard.

So why aren’t they performing? Here are a few potential reasons:

• They’re not motivated

• They don’t how to perform better

• They don’t even realise they’re not performing well

Although it sometimes might seem like it, it’s highly unlikely that someone is intentionally performing badly as a personal vendetta against you!

Personally, I would start this process of bringing them up through a candid 1-to-1.

Tell them the situation. Don’t be horrible about it, but you can be clear. For example:

What we’ve done here is we’ve been very clear from the beginning about where they are at, and we’ve also opened up the opportunity for dialog and communication.

We’ve opened an opportunity to solve the problem together.

I’m a huge advocate of ensuring the team execute plans they created instead of plans you imposed onto them. It massively increases buy in and support from the team and will work really well in this situation.

So we’re ticking off point 3 in my list above. Making them aware of the situation.

We can use this communication to help guide them into understanding how they could perform better which is ticking off point 2.

And because they came up with the plan, they’ll be more motivated to execute it, ticking off point 1.

Remember, the goal is not to be in a position to fire them!!!

If they don’t start executing the plan and performing better, lets think about what else we can do.

At this point, I would get other people on board. How can we use the rest of the team to bring them up to speed.

For example, we can identify a particular area we want them to improve upon. Following that, we can identify someone excelling in that area and run some informal coaching within the team.

This is something we did all the time in the navy. The crew would help each other out to learn more all the time. Everyone has knowledge to share with others.

What I really want to impress upon you here is the importance of noticing where improvements could be made, and thinking about how you can start to make improvements within your team.

Can you coach people and help bring them up, can you connect members of your team to share their skills?

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Before I go, I just want to make you aware of some charity fundraising I’m doing. In April, my partner and I are running the Bristol marathon.

Mental health support is a cause that is very deep to my heart. Almost everyone reading this will have been effected or will know someone effected by mental health related issues. Mind is an organisation making sure that those people can get the support they need.

This is why I’ve decided to raise money for Mind through this challenge. If you can spare any support for this incredibly organisation I would be incredibly grateful. You can sponsor the run at the link here or through the link below.

As always, have a great day.

Reece