How long can you suffer poor employee performance? – Ronan Kilroy FocalPoint Business Coaching.
True story.
When I was first promoted to the position of Sales Manager in 1996 I moved to England and inherited a team of 7 sales people. The team was grossly underperforming, yet like all teams there were those with genuine potential and those who were simply non performers.
One in particular story of many stands out. One of the salesteam was grossly underperforming. I knew that I had to understand what was going on, as ultimately a poor performer reflected badly on me and also on our team.
I took the decision to spend 2 days out in the field with him. I didn’t give him much notice, which was important to get an understanding of his levels of organisation and planning. To see if he actually planned to work that day. I’m not being flippant on this point, as you’ll see.
The day started with an appointment which quite clearly hadn’t been arranged. The call was a monumental disaster from a sales perspective. It was also evident that this person was completely out of his depth. He was nervous, which could be expected. I would alway make allowances for this. He was however completely disorganised. He had no product knowledge, no paperwork, no presenters etc. It was a complete mockery of a call.
It was evident that we needed to talk. From a selling perspective despite the shambolic performance I would have worked through these issues over time with proper training. Only however if the salesman had the right attitude, and wanted to change.
Anyway we pulled in to have a discussion on how we would proceed, and he gave me innumberable excuses on why things weren’t working out.
It was 2 weeks after we had launched our new Spring Range so I asked how he was progressing with this range. This is when he went completely silent. “What is wrong?” I asked. I had an instinct that said to me, get him to open his boot. He was reluctant to do so, and sure enough the sealed boxes of the range sat unopened in the boot.
He then explained that he hadn’t time to get this sorted. He as helping his friend, an insurance salesman with his new business and this was taking 2 days a week of his time. Could he have another month to sort this issue out and then he could direct all of his energy in to this job.
Guesses to you all on how long he remained in the job??
I know some of you will say that this is an extreme example. Yes it is extreme, but 100% true. It is also a relatively straight forward decision to make. This was too serious to leave on the long finger.
There are however many business owners out there who have team members that are grossly under performing. The employee behaviour may not be as blatant but the effect is equally pervasive.
The seriousness of not tackling this issue can not be underestimated.
I frequently hear from business owners that they have employees who are “a law onto themselves”. Who are not accountable. Who scorn change. Who poison the other staff with their vitriol, with their negativity. Yet the issue is never tackled.
There is a reluctance to face this problem head on.
Either from a sense of misplaced loyalty or a misguided idea that somehow the problem will either disappear or take care of itself, or just a denial of ultimate responsibility. That is that it is the owner/manager’s responsibility to deal with the problem.
Brian Tracy’s adage is “hire slow and fire fast”. This may not be as politically correct in today’s world, but it is still as valid as ever. Yes there must be process. Yes you must allow people to change. Yes you must provide the support and help to enable change. But equally you must draw a line in the sand.
Poor performers destroy your business. Jack Welsh famously said that the bottom 30% of your employees actively destroy your business. Wow!
Ask this question (refer to my Think KWINK article). Knowing what I now know, if I was starting this business again from scratch, would I employ this person. If the answer is no, then you need to find a way to either ensure that you deal with the issue through additional training and development. You need to ensure that they are more accountable or their performance. Or you need to find a way out of the business for them.
Don’t tolerate underperformance, it has too many serious consequences for you and your time, and for your team and it’s morale.
Best of luck, Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.
