It’s great that in all this doom and gloom of recession, job cuts, bankruptcy and MP’s expenses there are still companies who continue to develop their people. After all, we’ll need all these well trained staff and fantastic managers and leaders when the upturn comes!

So, the other week I was running a leadership programme for a client and I had been getting that old familiar sense that there were a few delegates, actively disengaged or sitting back out of character. Now, on most of the programmes I run as a facilitator, there are opportunities for one-to-one feedback with each other and with me or whoever is running the programme. On this particular occasion it gave me a good chance to chat to each of these delegates individually.

I already had some hunches about what was going on for these individuals that I had picked up from their behaviour, the language they used and the way they interacted with the rest of the group at certain times and over certain issues. Being candid, I broached the issues with each of the delegates and sure enough, there were indeed underlying reasons for their behaviour. For one it was simply that they did not believe they were credible to be doing the job they were in because they weren’t from a typical university background like so many peers. This is a relatively straightforward issue to tackle with some coaching and support.

The other two individuals however had quite different anxieties. One was suffering from a lack of progression, feeling passed over, feeling as though time was passing them by and generally fed up. The other had been through some tough times personally, wasn’t convinced they wanted to try and compete and play the politics required in the client’s business and was seriously doubting their position.

What struck me was that both of these individuals must have been feeling the way they did for a reasonably significant amount of time. Both were really unhappy and dissatisfied with the current situation they found themselves in but neither was doing anything about it, just rolling along in the same rut.

So, back to my question. When is it time to stop developing someone?

This company was clearly doing a very admirable thing investing time, effort and money on developing this population of managers, but clearly not all delegates would return the investment made in them going forward. So why are so few organisation’s grown up enough and sensible enough to recognise the point at which we should stop trying to develop someone and help them find a new direction?

Instead we believe that development, or over development, will give them the chance to improve and change. Ok, in some cases this invariably works, more by chance than calculation I suspect. So, do we try and develop someone or performance manage them out of the organisation?

Both of the individual’s mentioned above are highly likely to leave the organisation through dissatisfaction, possibly over promotion and possibly a lack of decent promotion opportunity. There is little that is likely to change their viewpoint as their relationship with the business is pretty poor. Ordinarily these people will be developed or promoted to a point where they either start screwing things up noticably or till the organisation has had enough and starts down the route of performance management i.e. disciplinary. I have seen this situation happen so often during my career and I believe there has to be another way to manage these situations effectively. How? By being grown up and talking about things out in the open.

I have known people in teams I’ve managed who have been unhappy because they are struggling with the demands of their role. For some this has been a capability issue, for others boredom, hunger for promotion that doesn’t exist. In all cases, my connection to my team has allowed me to realise when these situations have occured. I have always tried to build the teams I’ve managed on trusting relationships that are honest and open. This has meant that when people have really had a challenge or problem they’ve been able to talk to me about it without fear of predjudice or reprisal. This is one of the most important aspects of creating an environment for grown up dialogue.

Sometimes people reach a point in time where their role doesn’t fit them anymore or they don’t fit the organisation and at this point it is time to make a change of some sort. It is important to recognise the point at which a very capable person and a very necessary role become mismatched. This does not mean that the individual is now useless and should be performance managed and cast aside like they have some sort of lurgy or deficiency. Treating someone like they are incapable will only damage their view of themselves long term. I have seen very clever and capable people get their confidence smashed by an over ambitious and demanding manager. I have seen personality shifts in people who were once outgoing and energetic and now struggle to find self belief that they are still capable. This thinking then creates a new, but false reference point for many of their choices moving forward.

Creating an environment where grown up conversations can happen and openess is valued can avoid many of these damaging situations. For example, I had someone working for me some years ago who, for a couple of years had done a great job for me. With changes in the nature of the role they found themselves struggling to step up and performance was starting to slip. Through one-to-one reviews I talked to them about the slip in performance and they were honest enough to admit the areas they were struggling with. Between us we knew that this wasn’t a case of going on a course or undergoing coaching, it was a fundamental lack of desire to fulfill the new nature of the role. They were still a very capable individual and I wanted to ensure they stayed believing this of themselves.

I could have easily started down the route of performance managing them out of the business in order to recruit a replacement, but I didn’t. Instead I put a support mechanism in place to help this member of my team begin searching for a suitable new role, whether inside or outside of the organisation. In return I asked them to support me in recruiting the right person to replace them and to do a full handover to get them up to speed. After two months the team member left the business happy and confident having found a new role with another organisation and I had a new team member who was up to speed and a much better fit with the role.

I worked out that the cost of me taking this approach versus me making life hard for them, pushing them out of the organisation and then recruiting someone new and training them was around three times less. As an added bonus, I had parted company with someone who still held the organisation in high regard and would happily return to the business in the future………………..for the right role!

Whether you agree with my methods or not, commercially, it makes more sense and ethically it makes a whole lot of sense.

So, in short, if you want to manage these difficult situations in a grown up way:

1. Be honest and open with your team and encourage them to do the same without fear or reprisal.
2. Take time to ask your team members how they feel they are coping with the role, particularly when you know they are under specific pressures. The more you do this, the more they’ll talk about it.
3. Be honest and genuine with someone when their performance slips and identify the root cause.
4. If it’s something fixable easily, great.  If not, work with them to help them understand it may be time to move on.
5. Create a win-win arrangement.  Support their search for a new role if they, in return, help you replace them.

Follow this 5 step principle and you will find that dealing with performance issues get easier, exiting someone from the role becomes less painful and you leave the individual undamaged and confident for their future.  You will also grow to become a much more valued leader.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under General Learning & Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.