You do your best work; you give everything you have to help “Joe” be successful.
Some just will never cut it; many won’t. Despite all of your best efforts, they will blame you for their failures. Don’t own that, that is their personal journey, that is theirs to own. We cannot save them all.
As a top-performing leader, you have to constantly remind yourself that you can’t let one non-performer or bad culture fit affect the environment for the other 9 or 99 or 999 people who work in your organization.
Inaction in removing unproductive team members is a constant in all settings. Removing people is hard, but top-performing leaders understand that it is necessary if the team is going to be successful.
It isn’t hurtful. It is necessary, much like pruning a tree or a bush.
Pruning is when you selectively remove branches from a tree. The goal is to remove unwanted branches, improve the tree’s structure and direct new, healthy growth.
The benefits of tree pruning:
- Say farewell to dead, broken or damaged branches.
- Save your property from potential damage from fallen branches.
- When you remove old branches, you give trees the green light to put out healthy, new growth.
- Train trees to grow on your terms so that branches won’t hang over the roof or stretch into power lines.
- Give trees a clean, polished look that elevates your whole landscape.
- Set the tree up with a good foundation for long-term health.
Isn’t that exactly what we need for our organizations? For our teams?
There is far too much people inaction going on in small and mid-size businesses. Leaders are settling or employing too many “hope” strategies and feelings as it relates to people. We like them, and that blurs our vision of their fit into our culture and the results that they deliver.
In the movie “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson has a famous scene where he screams in the courtroom, “You can’t handle the truth!” And for many leaders today, they don’t, can’t, or won’t see the truth. They grade far too easily. Often times, they were in that individual contributor role recently, and they view their team through an individual contributor perspective, not as a leader. The reality is, if you are a leader of people—you get judged on the results that your team produces.
If you want to drive organizational performance, you need to get better at making hard decisions. People problems don’t go away, they just fester. Don’t kick the can down the road.
Make the hard decisions! Get better at being a pruner!
If you are struggling with organizational growth, it is frequently a “people” issue. If you need help making hard decisions to create the foundation for new growth, contact me for help!
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