Clear Out the Rot…Here We Go Again

Several weeks ago, I wrote a missive pertaining to the need to get rid of toxic employees. Clear Out The Rot. The message bears repeating. I know this because more and more often, I find myself having to ask a simple question…

It’s a question I ask after a client goes into a long monologue detailing a particular employee’s poor performance in spite of extensive coaching, training, and oversight. Sometimes I ask it when I’m standing before the entire leadership team of an organization and we’re capturing issues on a whiteboard preparing to solve them…forever. A name gets picked as the issue to solve and the leadership team members can’t help themselves. They all join in with horror stories about this problematic employee, “Fred.”

My question: “Why does Fred still work for you?” This stops them cold. Then they usually begin offering excuses for why they haven’t sent Fred packing. The excuses place blame on themselves for being poor managers rather than on Fred for being a poor employee. They offer these excuses while still pointing out all they have done to help Fred improve, thus proving that they are, in fact, good managers. It becomes readily clear that the blame belongs with Fred, who has done nothing to improve his performance.

This happened again this morning. There they sat, two partners running several profitable, thriving, global businesses they had founded. They’ve been able to successfully solve all kinds of issues that early-stage and growing businesses face coupled with the additional problems faced by international businesses. Yet “Jane” had them flummoxed.

Our conversation started calmly enough, as it usually does. They shared that Jane simply wasn’t completing some of her basic accountabilities well. I asked some questions. As they responded, we went deeper and deeper into the Jane situation. The managers turned to each other as their voices got louder and their faces contorted in anger.

Finally, one of them stopped, looked at me, and said “Wow, I’m really angry about Jane.” The other one, noticing the knowing look on my face, laughed, and said: “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

I had sat there quietly watching them drill down on Jane’s performance and rev each other up about the long-term issues they had let fester, the excuses they had made for Jane, and the magnitude of the impact of these decisions on their companies. But now, it was time to take swift and immediate action.

Result? We put in motion a plan to help Jane rapidly move along so she can find a place where she better fits in and can succeed.

If you’re in a company of any size, you have a Jane or Fred, or a number of them. Toxic people who aren’t doing their job. Their poor performance drags down those they work with, takes up managerial time, wastes resources, and reveals that you’re really not running that great company you’d like to run where everyone is the right person in the right seat. Why do good managers let bad employees hang around? They want to be nice. And they’re unwilling to make the hard people decisions as soon as they should.

It’s fine to try and help people improve. It’s what good managers do. It’s fine to help poor employees understand their failings and guide them to fix these things. It’s what good managers do.

But, as I’ve said before, what good managers also do is remove the toxic employee…rapidly.

Which leads to the second question I commonly ask. “You’re telling me about issues that have been going on for months and months and months. How long will it take for you to realize you’re enabling this poor performance and need to end it once and for all?”