Your Bottom 10% could be Another's 80th percentile!

There are managers who are always urging their people to improve. Not everyone likes these demanding manager! They are often short tempered, impatient but they do genuinely care for people's success and career. So when there is huge organizational change, their people navigate change better, add value and are more likely to keep their jobs.

So how do these demanding but caring (DC) managers lead? They

1. Set "Next Level" goals. These require people to upgrade themselves cause it's less about working harder and all about working smarter.

2. Assign expanded/different roles. Promote them so they lead teams or rotate them into different roles that require new skills.

Many of their people make the transition seamlessly but some will struggle. Poor managers tell a struggling employee 'you can do it". But if their people knew how they would have done it already! The DC manager serves strugglers by using the ACDCs roadmap.

A-nalyse the problem. Eg if an employee is a trainer, manager reads the evaluations, watch him conduct sessions and figure out performance gap. 

C-larify standards and make sure both are in sync.

D-emonstrate. Ask an employee to watch and break down the session to small steps.

C-oach and C-heer. Have employee role play the sessions and give feedback. And now you can tell them "you can do it" because they actually know how!

The DC manager will do everything and more to help the struggling employee but if performance continues to be dismal, the manager has to accept that s/he chose the wrong person for the job and could not make him successful.

So is termination next? It depends. Poor performers can be divided into 3 groups.

Group 1- "Toxic employees - Terminate Quickly." These are the poor performers who are blaming everyone except themselves for their troubles. They spend their time spreading negative energy.

Group 2- "Left behind employees - Retrain" Some employees struggle with change (eg process change or introduction of new technology) and hence lack skills and/are overwhelmed by the change. These "left behind" employees have positive attitudes and are "coachable". Almost all will respond positively to training and will go on to meet performance standards.

Group 3- "Critical Problem - Redeploy". There are employees whose performance dip because of critical problems like a. personality conflicts with manager/colleagues or b. job fit eg roles don't leverage their strengths and magnify weaknesses. These employees can do well when they report to a different manager and/or given roles that play to their strengths and make a weakness a smaller liability.

Poor performers who are toxic, I fire as quickly and respectfully as possible. Poor performers in Groups 2 and 3 get another chance from me because of 4 reasons-

1. People with great attitude and fits company culture- rare finds

2. Savings from eliminating replacement cost- huge $

3. Contribution of successfully redeployed employees - inspiring

4. Value of company's reputation for growing people - priceless.

Three Takeaways.

First, help all your people including poor performers succeed cause when your people grow, your business grows too.

Second, the best way to help people is to keep them growing. Each upgrade increases capability and nurtures adaptability, some of the best antidote against redundancy. The best time to do upgrades is when they are doing good, confidence is high and resources more easily available.

Third, when they are struggling with performance or have to move to a different role, they are also probably most open to feedback and change. This is also a great time to help them improve as they are receptive.