Why many leaders tolerate poor performers

No organisation can afford poor performers.

They undermine authority.

They cause complaints.

They “infect” the people around them.

They drain your energy.

They cost you money!

It usually starts with subtle signs…

You know, a sigh when you fumble something in a staff meeting

A roll of the eyes at a request you make

Muttering under the breath when you’re trying to rally the troops.

Just little things that piss you off

…and make you wonder what’s being said when you’re not around.

Then it becomes more overt:

They argue with you over decisions you make

They challenge things that are outside the scope of their job

They question you

They’re defensive when you question them.

They start creating their own hours – leaving early and arriving late

…they don’t even ask if it’s OK!

And on top of all the disrespectful behavior, they just don’t produce!

They don’t meet their targets

They don’t meet deadlines

They don’t get the results they were employed to get.

And then there’s the damage:

Clients threaten to leave because of poor treatment

Other staff start acting badly…questioning your authority.

YOU start dreading going to work!

You can’t bring yourself to make eye contact because you’re seething inside.

You know you need to have THE conversation…but you dread having it.

And you don’t know how to handle it, without it turning into a confrontation.

You can’t afford an unfair dismissal…

How should you tackle it?

What should you say?

What if talking to them just makes it worse?

…You’re not alone, you know. 

Most leaders tolerate poor performance to some degree, especially if they prefer a harmonious environment.

Most people want to avoid a confrontation.

But you can’t let poor performance like this go unchecked.

It has a big price tag:

It will fester, it will grow.

And it will do more damage than you’ll ever be able to repair.

“I hate having staff!” 

That’s what a client said to me the other day when we were talking about the fact that he’d waited far too long to fire a poor performer and was dreading going through the hiring process again…in case he made the same mistake.

The more we spoke, the more I realised he hadn’t communicated what he expected and didn’t know how to have a performance-based conversation when things weren’t going well with this particular employee. 

I also realised that he didn’t know how to hire people who were the right fit and to make matters worse, his hiring process had big gaps right through it.  No wonder he’d made a mistake with the last guy.

But he also felt trapped.

He needed someone in that position.  They were vital to the business.  And he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to find someone else with comparable skills. 

So he waited and waited.  He kept putting up with poor performance week in, week out…month in, month out.  Finally, the guy did something bad enough to make firing him inevitable.  But my client had waited far too long…because, in the meantime, the employee was screwing his business, jeopardizing client relationships and causing resentment among the other staff. 

This is not an isolated story.

My advice: If you’ve got someone who needs to go, don’t wait! 

Learn how to have difficult performance conversations and future proof the performance of your people by putting Measures of Success in place so that everyone knows what’s expected and therefore can be held to account for results.

In fact, so much of this pain and frustration could be avoided at the hiring stage.

You know what’s funny (well, not funny in the actual sense of the word, but more like ironic) is that it takes many leaders months if not years to fire a poor performer, but they’ll hire someone at the drop of a hat.

That’s completely arse-about! 

You’re better off adopting our motto: hire slow, fire fast.

Give me a call anytime to learn what we’d recommend if you’re experiencing a poor performer (or two).