My Coworkers Are Low Performers -- What Do I Do?

I recently changed the format of my show Life’s Messy Live Happy to be more of a question-and-answer program, and I love it! I’ve always enjoyed speaking with people one-on-one and helping them work through their problems with drama in the workplace, as I find it’s effective and rewarding for everyone. The new Life’s Messy Live Happy allows me to answer specific questions submitted by all of you, and now I’ll also be sharing some of these questions and answers on LinkedIn, so they can help even more.

I loved this recently featured question from an anonymous fan in my own backyard (us Nebraska drama ditchers have to stick together!), and I hope you do too!

How would you handle a situation where you are a high performer but are struggling with some peers who are low performers, despite efforts to help? How do you know when you are getting self-righteous versus honestly struggling?

So, let's look at this. First, welcome to reality. Every reality you have, there will be people who perform at higher and lower levels than you. In every reality, you'll have a boss who does some things you do and don’t prefer. Things come on a bell-shaped curve. The way to get really happy, successful, and capable is to stop wishing for reality to be different. Instead, commit to succeeding given the reality that you've been handed. Now, what helps us and what hurts us? How do you know if you’re being self righteous? Because you’re doing what I call arguing with reality. You can have the argument...you're just going to lose 100% of the time.

I've already said stop arguing with reality, but let’s dive deeper into that. You're on a team and you have some people who, in your judgment, are lower performers compared to you. I love that you practice Reality-Based Leadership and you stopped judging for a while and started helping. You need to know that your ego is sophisticated. It will have you do one thing, and when that doesn't change the situation, it will come back and say, “See, you’re right. They're the problem.”

The ego is bad at scorekeeping. It feeds discontent by comparison. It takes you from doing a great job and loving it in spite of people performing at different levels and it makes it unfair and ridiculous.The ego eats anger for lunch, and it needs to stay mildly discontent, comparing how hard you work or your performance with another’s.

Here's what I want you to do first. Stop adding judgment or evaluation to what's going on. Your reality is simply that someone is not as fluent as you would like them to be. Someone's acting in ways that you don't prefer. Edit your story and get neutral, and once you have, don’t get passive. I'm not saying that you just mind your own business and don't collaborate; neutral is where you get expansive.

Once you get neutral, I want you to clearly ask for what you need. Don't expect people to read minds. If there's things you need from others, ask them for it, when you can expect it, how you might make it easier for them to deliver, and how you can help. It sounds like you've been doing that, but make sure you really listen to their answers and follow the simple instructions, or decide what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do.

Second, I think what’s getting in your way is you’re using the Reality-Based tools with motive or expectancy. I give you the tools so you can stay in higher levels of consciousness and operate more skillfully in the world; to live happy even when life's messy. Sometimes we use the tools in the hopes that somebody else will change--don’t do that. Do what you’re doing for you and not to try and change them.

Be very careful of the ego saying, “Yeah, I shouldn't have to.” When you're practicing this--the difference between self-righteousness and struggling--you'll come up with great ideas. If you ask yourself, “What would great look like?,” you would think, “I wouldn't worry about them. I would just deliver at this level.” When you’re great, you don’t worry about “I shouldn’t have to” and you don’t measure yourself against others.

Did you get something out of this question? Do you have one you think I could help you with? Submit it here and it might be featured in an upcoming episode!