FROM POOR PERFORMANCE TO HIGH PERFORMANCE

How to turn a struggling employee around

Since the month of September, I have been focusing on the dispositions and corporate strategies of CEOs and business owners. I started a four-part series with a short info on five books that I urged every business owner to read before the end of year. Great wisdom is hidden in books, infact, some scholars say that there is no great leader that is not a voracious reader. We don’t always have to learn through our own mistakes, we can leverage on the experiences and research of other people. I am hoping that some of you have read at least two of those books. They have information that will help owners of both start-ups and established businesses.

For the second part of the series, I wrote about conversations an entrepreneur should have with his/her senior management staff before the end of the year. The goal is to end the year not just with a good profit but with a clear perspective of how your business will go in 2027. As I emphasised, you don’t wait till December to discover what September could have revealed easily. A strategic conversation even today can help unravel the strengths and weaknesses of the business and pinpoint deliberate measures that will help refocus and revitalize the organisation to ensure a great dividend by the end of year.

In the third part of the series, I focused on the need to create a corporate culture that keeps the staff motivated even when the boss is not present. My emphasis was that motivation of staff is necessary and need not be expensive. Bonuses, paid vacations, foreign seminars and trainings that cost a fortune are all good if the organisation can afford it, however, I stated other things that cost little or nothing that will give workers a sense of belonging and motivate them to perform effectively even without supervision.

In this article, I will be looking at the underperforming but loyal staff and how the CEO or his appointed managers can help him/her function optimally. A CEO’s job is not merely to hire people and hope they perform. It is to create the conditions in which people can understand the vision, contribute to it, grow within it and be held accountable for it.

When it comes to staff management, three things are uppermost in the agenda of the CEO; employment and retention of efficient staff, translating the corporate vision in such a way the that the workforce can assimilate it and run with it and lastly – in the spirit of leaving no good hand behind – getting the staff to perform at their maximum best. So, Retention says, how do I keep my smart employees? Commitment deals with getting the staff to care about where the organisation is going and key into it. Lastly, performance management asks, how do I turn my loyal staff into high performing and valuable members of the team?

Poor performance comes in different molds. It could be an employee who was once enthusiastic, firing from all cylinders, but has gradually become careless and indolent, missing deadlines and turning in sloppy work. When customers begin to complain, instructions have to be repeated several times, and the person who once volunteered to assist others seems to be doing the bare minimum, then intervention is urgently needed.

Sometimes the immediate reaction from corporate bodies is to terminate the employment of a member of staff that starts lagging behind in performance. And sometimes that is exactly what the business needs to do. But for a loyal staff, an entrepreneur needs to ask further questions before taking a decision. In fact, one of the most valuable management skills an entrepreneur can develop is the ability to distinguish between an employee who cannot perform, one who has not been properly enabled to perform, and one who simply will not perform.  These are three very different problems and they require very different responses.

1. Establish that there really is a performance problem

This sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to get wrong.

A manager may say, “Jude has a bad attitude.” But what does that actually mean? Does he arrive late? Does he fail to meet deadlines? Does he speak rudely to customers? Does he refuse instructions? Does repeat errors despite corrections? Or does the manager simply dislike his personality?

Performance management should be based on observable behaviour and measurable expectations, not irritation, rumours or personality clashes. Instead of saying, “You are not serious about your job,” a manager should be specific and say: “You have missed four agreed deadlines in the last six weeks.” Or, “Three customers have complained about the way their enquiries were handled by you.” Now there is something concrete to discuss.

2. Find out what is causing the poor performance.

Can the person handle the job? Is he the right fit for the assigned role? Has he been trained for that role? Does he have the required tools? Is the workload realistic? Is the manager part of the problem? Years ago, I once hired a marketing manager for one of my companies. He came highly recommended and had years of experience with a clear record of good performance. Within one week, he had drawn up and impressive work chart for the marketing division and talked confidently about expected result once the chart was fully implemented. Three months later, sales was on a steady decline; the result he promised never came. It was obvious that while he may have succeeded elsewhere as marketing manager, my company’s needs varied from what he was used to. I could have asked him to resign but his confidence, intelligence, impressive presence and ability to take charge were characteristics that I needed in my managers. I decided to put him in charge of a new department – business development. It was an instant success story.

3. Have the uncomfortable conversation early.

Don’t allow six months of frustration to accumulate before telling someone that his work is unacceptable. Have the difficult conversation early. That way, the poor performance is nipped in the bud before it affects the business and staff morale. A useful conversation might sound like:

“I want to discuss your performance in the past … weeks or months. Your work has fallen below the standard we expect in these areas. I want to understand what is happening and what we can do to change the trajectory.” That approach is firm without being humiliating.

The employee should leave the conversation knowing three things: What is wrong? What is expected? What happens next?

4. Separate inability from unwillingness.

This may be one of the most important distinctions an entrepreneur can make.

An employee who cannot do a job may need training or coaching. But an employee who knows exactly what is required, has the tools and training, understands the consequences and repeatedly chooses not to do the work presents a different management problem.

5. Set a clear improvement plan.

Don’t just tell your employee to “improve.” That is not a performance plan. What should he improve on, by how much and when? A struggling employee needs clarity. Say instead – this is what needs to change, this is what good performance looks like, this is the timeframe you have to implement changes, and this is how we will measure progress. Clear expectations create fairness and will reinforce the employees faith that he is being helped.

6. Give the employee a genuine opportunity to succeed.

Sometimes an entrepreneur would have already mentally fired an employee before the performance conversation even begins. That is not rehabilitation. If you have decided that nothing the person does will ever change your mind, do not pretend to be running an improvement process. A genuine opportunity to improve means giving the employee reasonable clarity, support, feedback and time. It also means acknowledging progress. Give responsibility, coaching, feedback and recognition when improvement occurs.

7. Watch what happens when nobody is watching.

There is a difference between compliance and commitment. An employee may improve temporarily because the manager is watching closely. Reports arrive on time. Customers are handled properly. The employee becomes punctual and everything looks promising. But what happens three months later when the pressure eases? Does the employee continue to perform effectively?

That is where transformation becomes visible. The objective is not merely to create an employee who behaves well because the boss is watching. It is to develop an employee who has begun to take ownership. Most times the greatest transformation is not dramatic. They may appear to be small changes but they are not. High performance is often built through a series of small changes that become habits. The manager’s responsibility is to notice those changes and reinforce them.

8. Recognise transformation, not just results.

If someone who was constantly late becomes punctual, starts meeting deadlines and begins helping colleagues, acknowledge the change. People need to know that they are not permanently defined by their worst period. This is particularly important in growing organisations. If the person responds positively to correction and demonstrates sustained improvement, allow the improvement to count.

9. Know when rehabilitation has failed.

This is important. Not every employee can or should be “saved.” A high-performance culture requires accountability. If someone has been given clarity, support, training, a reasonable amount of time and repeated opportunities but remains unwilling to perform, the entrepreneur has to make a difficult decision swiftly. Sometimes the employee you keep trying to fix is telling you, through repeated behaviour, that he does not want to change.

The entrepreneur’s skill lies in knowing the difference.

Fatherhood with Ibe

A DAD’S RETROSPECTION

It was 9pm when my first son, Emeka, walked into my bedroom. We had been trying and failing to schedule a meeting for nearly a week and I was happy to see him.

“How has your day been?” I asked.

“I continue to struggle,” he replied, looking uneasy.

I raised my brows and took a closer look at him.

“What areas and how can I help?” I asked.

“Cash flow and daily stress,” he replied with his deep baritone voice.

He lowered his big frame into the seat beside me. I worry about his weight each time but sadly at nearly forty there is not much a father can do. Your adult child has grown and must face his own daily challenges with life.

We talked for nearly an hour. I sorted some issues that I could and he left. Then I began to ask myself what I could have done differently. That retrospection kept me awake for many hours more before I found sleep.

In the last six years, my wife, Betty’s health has been a challenge. Early onset of generational diabetes and later high blood pressure have led to an upsurge of Alzheimer and Parkinson and now the once visibly audacious professional lady and mother has been plagued by the challenges of these aggressive ailments. (I will have a book on this chapter of my life someday soon). But what it has meant is that I have assumed the role of sole parenting for my three older children and it has been challenging. Thankfully, with my three younger kids, their mother, my ex-wife Miriam, has stepped in and handled it all well.

That night, I thought of Emeka and why he continued to struggle. I could feel the frustration in him and his zeal to rise and be independent and self achieving. I could feel his frustration with not being where his father would have loved him to be. And my heart ached.

We have had our fights and arguments; fights over whether as a past minister and group managing director of Nigeria’s oil company, I could have done more for him and my other children. It had built a wedge between us with each of us having our own perspective. I thought I supported my kids in a way that allowed them stand on their own feet without breaking the rules. Right now, I am not sure anymore if my straight principled life approach works in a Nigerian environment.

I went back, down memory lane. Growing up, time with my kids were hours snatched from corporate obligations. I focused on providing the resources for their education here and abroad. Until my wife took an early retirement, she too was busy as a general manager in a first class lead bank with all the pressures. I believe the stress led to her early retirement at 50 and ultimately to her health challenges. But what our lifestyle meant was that I left her the burden of superintending our three kids… just as I did my younger three kids from my second marriage. The approach worked with the younger three boys but I am not sure it worked with the senior ones.

Also, I was the soft intellectual father. My growing up experiences made me decide not to apply the stick approach with my kids. I truly never flogged a child in all their growing up years. But I was firm and would communicate my displeasure sternly if the kids went outside the line. In truth, using a mix of firm guidance, incentives denial and advisory sessions got my kids to stay on the straight lane.

Secondary school was boarding school. It gave Betty and I a little more time for our careers but away for months from parental supervision, who knows what peer influence did to the kids, who knows what unvetted voices they listened to. Holidays were family vacation time around the world. Again, who knows what such exposures did to the kids’ expectations about what the world owed them.

After their graduations, they all returned to Nigeria at my request and encouragement. I supported the move with an apartment each, car gifts and support allowances where necessary … just until they found their feet, I had said to myself. It felt like the right thing to do then but I wasn’t so sure anymore; had I unintentionally muffled the hunger that drives the ambition and passion which young people need to survive in Nigeria?

As I lay in bed that night, I reflected on three experiences I’d had with my different kids along their tracks of adolescence….

(To be continued)