Do Business Well

Whether the employee is at the end of a trial period, or whether he is just struggling along in his current role, it is still difficult to bring him bad news. It is still difficult to tell him that he needs to move out of his role. During Gallup’s interviews, many managers, both great and average, confessed that they were physically sick before each conversation of this kind. No matter how you approach it, no matter how accomplished you are as a manager, removing someone from his role is never easy.

Here we are not referring to situations where the employee has committed some heinous or unethical act—with their quasi-legal or legal nature, these dramas are more clear-cut. Rather, we are referring to those unfortunate times when it becomes obvious that a particular employee is consistently failing to perform.

Situations like this are much less well defined. As a manager, you have many decisions to make: What level of performance is unacceptable? How long is too long at that level? Have you done enough to help, with training, motivation, support systems, or complementary partnering? Should you break the news all at once, or should you give them a probationary period? When the final conversation happens, what words will you use?

Some managers are so overwhelmed by these questions that they avoid the issue altogether. They take the easy way out and “layer over” the problem employee with a new hire. In the short run this can appear to be a painless and convenient solution. But in the long run, like wrapping pristine bandages around an infected wound, it is deadly for the company.

Some managers solve the problem by deciding to keep all their employees at arm’s length. With this neat trick they hope to diminish the tension and the pain inherent in giving bad news to a friend. Unfortunately, as Phil Jackson pointed out, by refusing to get to know their employees, they also diminish the likelihood that they will ever be able to help any of these employees excel.

The best managers do not resort to either of these evasive maneuvers. They don’t have to. They employ tough love, which is not a technique, or sequence of action steps, but a mind-set, one that reconciles an uncompromising focus on excellence with a genuine need to care. It is a mind-set that forces great managers to confront poor performance early and directly. Yet it allows them to keep their relationship with the employee intact.

So what is tough love? How does it work?

The “tough” part is easy to explain. Because great managers use excellence as their frame of reference when assessing performance, Tough love simply implies that they do not compromise on this standard. So in answer to the question “What level of performance is unacceptable?” these managers reply, “Any level that hovers around average with no trend upward.” In answer to the question “How long at that level is too long?” Great managers reply, “Not very long.”

It was this uncompromising standard of excellence that drove Harry D., a successful manager of two car dealerships. “We opened a second car dealership, much larger than the first. I wanted to create what I called a total service culture, where the customers received a seamless quality experience whether they were dealing with the sales department, the financing department, or the service department. I was looking for total integration of systems and total cooperation from my department heads. Big plans, right? It got off to a rocky start, let me tell you.

“My biggest mistake was the guy I promoted to head up the sales department, Simon. He came from my smaller dealership, where he was sales manager, very successful. But when he moved into the new spot, he couldn’t get into the cooperation thing at all. He wouldn‘t communicate with the other department heads. He wouldn‘t show up for meetings. He wouldn‘t sit down with the other department heads and work out how to integrate the systems and ease the interdepartmental hand- offs so that the customer wouldn‘t feel a jolt. He was just interested in his guys and his numbers.

“At the same time, back at the other dealership, I had stupidly promoted one of the salespeople to sales manager, and he was struggling, too. So I had grown from one success to two failures. Not bad going.

“I knew I had to move quickly. I had talked with Simon about my concerns a couple of times but saw no improvement at all. So, five months in, I pulled him into my office and told him that I wanted him back in the other dealership. I told him that in this new dealership I wa_s not interested simply in sales numbers, that I wanted to build this integrated, total service experience, and that he wasn’t helping. I told him that he was a loner and that, back in the other dealership, he could narrow his focus all he wanted, but here, in the new world, it wouldn‘t fly. I’m sending you back, I said.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The Art of Tough Love: how do great managers terminate someone and still keep the relationship intact?

• The Art of Tough Love: how do great managers terminate someone and still keep the relationship intact? part 3
• The Art of Tough Love: how do great managers terminate someone and still keep the relationship intact? part 2
• The Manager and the New Career
• How High Is High Enough for You?
• My Successful Business Tips, One Rung Doesn't Necessarily Lead to Another
• A Lateral Move Can Lead Upward
• The Secret of My Success, Tales of Transformation, Why is it so Tempting to try to fix people?
• Keys of Your Own, Talented Employee
• Career Management, Spend the Most Time with Your Best People，Why do great managers play favorites?
• Cultivating allies

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