Half-job Harry: Dealing with Poor Performance Case Study 1

What do you do when you've tried the 'difficult conversation' - and it was - well difficult? And worse - it didn't make much difference. You need a better toolkit.

Each of these case study articles assumes you have done the basics of giving some evidence-based feedback and set an expectation of improvement that has not been me.? (if you haven’t check out this blog post first) ??Then what do you do?? Read on!

I use each case study – which is based on a real case - ?to explore just one aspect of how to deal with poor performance.? Because frankly, if I could answer how to deal with long term poor performance issues in just one short article, the problem wouldn’t have been poor performance in the first place.? Find out more about the complete toolkit here.

Case Study 1 :? Half-job Harry – only does the parts of the job he likes

Have you ever had this?? One of your team – let’s call them Harry – is really good at some parts of their role.? And other parts they just leave out.

1.?????? Perhaps they love talking to clients but hate updating the database – cue nods from every sales manager ever!

2.?????? Perhaps they create great events, but clear off when there is tidying up to be done?

3.?????? Perhaps they write excellent reports, but never show up for team meetings??

4.?????? Or perhaps they show up for all the meetings, make great contributions, and then never do what they promised.

Maybe you have Half-job Harry in your team?

And let’s be honest – you’ve probably been a Half-Job Harry at some point in your career – I know I have.

But, as you are probably experiencing – having a Harry in your team is very irritating.? Indeed, can be very destructive.

Because… if you let Harry only do their favourite bits of the job – who is going to do the rest?? You?? Some other team member who might also not love that work?? Or will it not get done until there is a crisis?? A crisis isn’t good for your reputation as a manager, your work stress, or your team’s well-being.

Now of course it’s possible that you have someone in your team who will love the things Harry hates.? Hurray.? Problem solved.?

But outside that easy answer, you know you need to do something.? But what?

The great temptation is to jump to solutions… Tell him to do X… If you have tried this, you will know It rarely works.

So FIRST you need to ANALYSE the situation.? Take the time to build a thorough understanding of what is happening, why it might be happening (usually multiple reasons) and differentiate between symptoms of the problem(s) and causes.? Let’s look at scenario 1 above.? This Harry talks to clients but doesn’t update the CRM or other database.???

Here are some questions you might use to start your analysis:

·?????? Who are the clients – internal or external?

·?????? What is about talking to clients that Harry likes, what motivates Harry to keep talking to clients?

·?????? What do the clients feel about their inter-actions with Max? Do they want as much inter-action as they get? More? Less?

·?????? What impact does not updating the database have on the clients? Max’s colleagues?? Other parts of the organisation? Profits?? Budgets? You?

·?????? Has Max ever done database updates properly?? Yes – what has changed?? No – why has this not been tackled before?

No doubt you can think of other questions.

The point is… only when you start to ask multiple meaningful questions about the situation can you get beyond your own reaction to the situation.? And you need to get beyond your feelings because responding to poor performance based on your feelings is highly stressful and unlikely to lead to a good outcome for you or the organisation, let alone Harry.? And I understand that the outcome for Harry might not feel like your highest priority at the moment – but that’s why you need to get beyond your feelings.

So here’s your first task for dealing with poor performance… build yourself a rich list of questions to explore about the situation.? Try to avoid answering the questions until you have got a good list.

Once you have answered the questions, see if further questions are provoked.

This might take you ten minutes or two hours depending on the scale of the problem.? But whatever it takes is worth it – you need to deal with poor performance and the longer you leave it the harder it is.

Join our forthcoming webinar which shares more of the Poor Performance Toolkit

Or go straight to getting your Poor Performance Toolkit here!

Feedback and comments are always welcome!

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