Low Performer or Lost Potential? Meta fires "Low Performers"— But Did Anyone Tell Them What "Great" Looks Like?
Jaime Torchiana, M.S.
President, Exemplary Performance?? Marquis Who's Who in America USAT Team and 4X All-American Duathlete??
?? What if being labeled a “low performer” weren’t about politics, restructuring, or flawed evaluations—but about a lack of clarity on what success actually looks like?
Recent headlines around Meta’s layoffs highlight a critical issue in performance management: Too often, employees are told they’re not meeting expectations—but no one ever defined those expectations clearly in the first place.
Performance Labels Are Failing Employees—Here’s a Better Approach
At Exemplary Performance, we take a very different approach to performance. Instead of relying on broad benchmarking studies, non-specific competencies and capabilities, or subjective ratings, we:
? Define what top performance actually looks like— our model for driving improved business results by replicating the accomplishments of your top performers starts by studying their mental models, behaviors, decisions, and execution strategies. Your top performers have proven that success is possible within your current environment and culture - why not learn from them? Given their accessibility, it makes this approach cost-effective, relatively quick, and because they are trusted to consistently outperform, the insights have built-in credibility and relevance to anyone performing the role.
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? Equip managers with tools to coach and develop employees effectively—so they ensure their teams stay focused on the high-impact activities that drive results - key tasks, interactions, and insights that are illuminated in our research. Salesforce reports that teams with strong coaching cultures exceed quota by 20% more than those with weak coaching cultures.
? Create systems that drive performance, retention, and engagement— Once top performance is well-defined, we help our clients translate these insights into role-specific, scalable learning and performance solutions with measurable impact. When employees understand what’s expected of them and feel that the company is investing in them, they perform at higher levels and stay longer.
Layoffs happen. Restructuring happens. But if organizations truly understand what makes someone great at their job—and build systems to elevate everyone to that level—how much stronger would their workforce be?
?? What’s your take on how companies handle performance management today? Let’s discuss in the Comments section.
Creating capable, inspired & passionate people in work, sport and life | Human performance & mind fitness coach | Serial Entrepreneur
2 周This prompted a thought about how this approach would help both the leader and the employee by bringing clarity on what high performance is. Leaders would be able to clearly articulate expectations and evaluate employee performance. Employees would know what is expected of them and whether they were meeting or exceeding those expectations. Too often, the leader has a vague description of what high performance looks like and fall back on trusting their gut, politics, etc. That’s not the best way to react. For the employee, it’s like trying to be good at archery while being blindfolded. You can’t see the target.
citizen & partner at Perpetual: we empower human-centric, high performance teams and organizations
2 周Love this Jamie, the “role reference profile” work is so important. A form of “appreciative inquiry” that all organizations should go through. Also a good book called “the power of positive deviance” that is related in that this technique is used to solve chronic problems that seemed initially unsolvable.
Procurement | Strategic Sourcing | Contract Negotiations | Supplier Management | Data Analytics | Program Management | Project Management | Cost Reduction | Relationship Builder | Passionate about leadership
2 周I like the feedback loop (diagram) of hitting/reviewing multiple areas in order to show what top performance looks like. Today, it feels like there is too much bias and manager perception of you or how you do the job and there is no discussion. There needs to be a way to allow people to bring their unique skills and way of doing the job into the role.