How to Manage a Bad Employee

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder, and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product.Today, I'm going to talk about one of the hardest jobs of every manager. Let's hop into it.

6 Questions to Ask Yourself About Poor Performers

 I'm going to break down a situation that happens all of the time in business. You’ve hired someone you're super excited about. They're about two weeks into their job. They've just been onboarded and in your head, you're excited for them to start cranking out stuff and adding value. Then you get to the one month mark and nothing has really happened yet, but you chalk it up to it's still being really early and so you continue to monitor how they're doing. Then you get to month two, and you start getting concerned. They've been at the company for 60 days. It doesn't feel like anything has happened. A few deadlines have been missed for what felt like good, but maybe bullshit, reasons, but you're just not feeling confident anymore. And you're stuck in this weird place. How do you get this hire back on track where your standards and expectations are clear, but you don't feel like you're getting into this endless loop of being critical whenever you meet them, and they end up becoming unempowered with the work that they're doing and mentally checkout? This exact scenario is why managing is so fricking hard, but having gone through this so many times, I have thoughts on how you can navigate poor performers and it comes down to six very simple steps or questions you need to ask yourself. 

#1: What is the cause of poor performance? 

Question one, what is the cause of poor performance? Is it the person, is it the position, or is it something external, like the company? And answering this question, not only allows you to diagnose the problem, but it also gives you a sense of if the solution has a high probability of success. If, say, the problem is the person, is it because they're missing a key skill or because they aren't proactive enough or do they just not have the right work ethic? If it's the latter, the probability of turning a poor performer into a high performer is very low. If it's the position or the company, you have more opportunity to get creative and remedy with things like moving the person laterally or fixing processes in the company or making sure communication is better flowing up and down the organization, like what I talked about last episode on extreme ownership. Another way that people will tackle the what's the cause or what's the problem question is instead of bucketing it as the person, the position, or the company, they'll bucket it as lack of training, lack of motivation, or an issue with the environment. However you view it, understanding the blocker is the only way to figure out what is the possible solution to remedy poor performance and how likely is that solution to turn a poor performer into an all-star. That's question one.

#2: What is the solution for poor performance? 

Question two, what is the solution for poor performance? Naturally the second question to ask is what is the solution for the problem you've identified? And there is no crystal key. It really just depends on the situation. From my experience, solutions to try and kickstart better performance have included: one, a different manager, if I think that a different style of management is needed to motivate the employee or provide more structure; two, offloading of responsibilities if I think that the person simply has too much on their plate and that's causing themselves to be super spread thin; three, asking them to take time off if I think they're literally burnt out and they don't have enough rest or balance in their life to be successful; four, a career coach or a course, if I think there's a skill that they need to be successful in their job with, and they don't possess it today; five, better communication from myself or that person's manager about the why of what we're doing and what our priorities are. And that's just a flavor of some of the solutions that I've picked when trying to manage a poor performer into being an all-star, but more important than the solution is how you present and communicate that solution. For example, have you offered support and tools? So not just what is wrong and this is what needs to happen, but have you actually offered resources for them to close the gap between what's wrong and what needs to happen? Also, have you made things perfectly clear? Is your feedback on mistaken will and is the solution unmistakable? So a month from now, when you both are reflecting on how performance has changed, it's impossible to confuse what should have happened. 

#3: Is the solution measurable? 

Next up is question three. So you have problem. You have solution. Now the most important part of the solution in order to be able to track if this employee has actually gotten better is asking yourself the question, is it measurable? Making things measurable is always important, but it is especially important when you're trying to manage a poor performer. And there's a few reasons for that. First it's super important for the employee. If they agree to hitting a certain measure that signifies being successful in the role, it not only creates clarity around what's expected, it also avoids an employee getting unempowered because they avoid being in a position where they feel like nothing is ever good enough for their boss. Second, it is important for maintaining a paper trail of clear communication. Obviously most full-time employees are at will, but it is best for an employer to have good reason for letting someone go. When someone doesn't hit a clear metric that obviously shows good reason. 

#4: Is there buy-in from the employee? 

Question number four: Is there buy-in from the employee? And this is so much more important than the problem or the solution, or is it measurable. Those things are great, but those things are only as valuable as an employee's willingness to get better. Buy-in from an employee means a few things. It means they understand the why, meaning why are we on this mission? Why am I doing the work that I'm doing? It means they trust you. And if you're trying to figure out how to build up trust, revisit the episode on radical candor that talks about caring personally, while challenging directly, we'll link to it in the show notes. It means they understand what your standard is, what your standard of success is. Again, that goes back to being measurable. And it goes back to what we talked about in the extreme ownership episode of setting the standard by very clearly articulating what is good and what is not good. And finally it means they want to improve and get better. They have the intrinsic motivation to grow as a professional and without one of these four elements, getting better, understanding the standard, trusting you, or understanding the why, everything breaks down and it almost becomes impossible for someone to transition from under-performer to outperformer

#5: Is there an established cadence for communication and feedback? 

Question number five: Is there a communication and feedback cadence that is articulated after you come up with a solution and a game plan? Very simply, it makes a lot of sense to have a short-term cadence after your meeting, where you tell an employee that they're not doing a good enough job, so that there's quick follow up. You want to show the employee that you're actively invested in their improvement, and you just also don't want their poor performance to linger. And so what I would think about is if you're actively managing a poor performer is do daily stand-ups to make sure the two of you are constantly on the same page and communication is clear and always happening, and then dedicate your weekly one-on-ones with them to tackling just this problem, which is the biggest blocker because of it isn’t unblocked, they're not going to have a job anymore. And this is obviously very demanding time-wise for you as a manager, and it's not sustainable, which leads to the very last question in this process. 

#6: Have you given the poor performer every chance to succeed? 

And that question is, have you given the person every chance to succeed? Obviously the goal of everything I'm talking about is to coach and support a poor performer in a way that they can evolve into being the right person in the right role at your company so you don't have to let them go. But if it is becoming obvious that your standards continue to not be met, you just can't delay getting rid of them. Remember this isn't personal. It's not an attack on their character. It just not the right fit for the company and its mission, which is your number one responsibility as an employee. Ultimately, it's a failure on your part, right? It goes back to extreme ownership. You have to take responsibility for this. You either made the mistake of hiring the wrong person who doesn't have the right skills or the right experience, or you didn't give the person what they needed to succeed. But regardless, things aren’t working, they are not helping the company achieve its mission, and you are spending an unsustainable amount of time trying to remedy their performance. You need to know when you've done all you can and you have to call it quits. 

Recap

So to recap, this is all about how to manage bad employees and hopefully turn them into good employees. And that requires asking yourself six questions and being thoughtful and answering them. First, what's the cause of poor performance? Second, what's the solution for poor performance? Third, is that solution measurable? Fourth, is there buy-in from the employee? Fifth, is there a communication or feedback cadence once you've developed a plan? And six, have you given this person every chance to succeed? 

I want to hear from you

Now, before we finish the episode, I just want to say that Founder’s Journal has been on absolute fire this month. We have a chance to grow the show by more than 50% month over month. The show is constantly Top 25 in business, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the major players. And I want to keep this momentum going. So if you listened to this episode and you like what you heard, make sure to tell a friend, a family member, or coworker. Make sure to subscribe to the show. And actually I would love to better understand who you are and why you listen to the podcast. So shoot me an email at alex@morningbrew.com or DM me on Twitter @businessbarista. And just shoot me a simple note. Why is it that you listen to Founder’s Journal and how does it help you specifically in your work or your life? Last but not least, I need to give a huge shout out to the team that makes this show possible. Our show is produced and engineered by Dan Bouza. Our associate producer is Bella Hutchins. Brian Henry is our executive producer. Alan Haburchak is Morning Brew’s director of audio. Holly Van Leuven is our fact checker. Noah Friedman is our video producer and editor. And I'm your host, Alex Lieberman. Thanks again for listening. And I'll catch you next episode.