How to deal with an Executive that is underperforming, Good Fit Bad Fit & They’re burying their heads in the sand
18 September 2022 Newsletter
“Be humble enough to accept the process.” Rafael Nadal
Hope you’re Thriving!
I love that quote from Rafael Nadal above – it’s so simple yet contains such wisdom. When you accept the process, you stop bargaining with it. You stop arguing about how the world should work and align yourself with how it actually works.
I remember a year or two ago, a client had an ah-ha moment where she said, “oh, the answer is just to follow the recipe (process)”. She had been resisting or bargaining with the process of embedding strong execution habits into her business – setting and tracking the right priorities, ensuring everyone has the right metrics and maintaining the proper meeting rhythm.
The process is the process; it’s you that’s either making it work or making it not work.
Onboarded Book
Onboarded. How to bring new hires to the point where they are effective, faster launches on 1 November 2022.
All pre-order and purchasing details will be shared in my newsletter in the coming weeks.
Good Fit Bad Fit
Continuing excerpts from my new book Onboarded, here’s a snippet about good and bad fit:
Let’s consider what happens when a leader reflects on a recent new hire that has gone badly, resulting in that person exiting the company. The leader might explain the exit by saying, “The person was a bad fit.” “How do you know?” one might ask. “They didn’t fit,” the leader replies. “But why?” the other person presses. “We know they didn’t fit because they don’t work here anymore!” the leader answers.
The actual reason for the person’s departure is never uncovered in this conversation.
Now let’s consider another situation where a person who was hired recently still works at the firm. “They were a good fit,” the leader might explain. “How do you know?” their co-worker asks. The leader might then say, “Because they still work here!”
In both cases, the leader is likely considering the individual a good or bad fit before they start working for the organisation. They do not understand the most important aspect of hiring: when you hire someone, you’re provided with a person who is a potential fit with your organisation. Then the onboarding process takes them from a potential fit to a successful fit or an unsuccessful fit.
Let’s go back to the definition of onboarding. Onboarding is the process of taking someone from outside your organisation and making them a productive, independent, and confident member of your team who understands the culture, the technical and process expectations, and your expectations as their manager.
That definition results in a successful fit or an unsuccessful fit. It doesn’t result in a good or bad fit.
They’re burying their heads in the sand
We recently had an election in Australia, and it was staggering to hear politicians talking about their goals to try and achieve full employment. Almost every meeting I go to, we talk about how it’s so difficult to find staff. But what if the Government’s data isn’t reflecting reality?
I’ve spoken before about Survivorship bias and how “We can only work with the data that we have, along with what the data isn’t telling us, and that data may be inaccurate due to survivorship bias”.
Well, I came across an interesting article last week that asked, what if we’re not measuring the health of the economy in a way that accurately measures the health of the economy?
And what if economists are measuring the data they have but not considering the data they don’t have?
What does it matter if 20%+ of the workforce shifts to remote-oriented jobs?
Here’s a practical and recent example:
Many economists are saying that the US is not in a recession. They argue that despite two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, we’re not in a recession because of solid job and wage growth. Historically speaking, that’s a fair point.
But looking closer, many economists seem confused by the national “employment” numbers. Why are we adding so many jobs despite all the other negative signals?
They fail to consider the society-level shift caused by remote work and how it has helped achieve higher employment rates than ever before.
The critical point here is that the shift to remote work likely has a near-term positive impact on national employment rates. I.e., more people can find jobs that match their skills because they are applying to a larger national job pool vs smaller, more local pools.
Read the article here: Traditional Measurements of the Economy Miss the Consequences of a Macro-level Change in the Labor Market
This week on The Growth Whisperers Podcast
How to deal with an Executive that is underperforming
How do you deal with an Executive that is underperforming?
Executives are the most impactful and important roles in your company. Weak executives create weak teams, which start to rot the company from the inside out.
Sometimes we have good people who we trust, but they perform at a B level. They score high on the core values but score low on productivity. These people can be difficult to deal with, and exceptionally difficult to deal with if it’s a CEO dealing with a B performer Executive.
This week we talk about stories we’ve seen where leaders have dealt with a B player Executive well and stories where they haven’t dealt with it well. Also, we explain how to deal with this situation.
Episode 127 – The Growth Whisperers
Listen to The Growth Whisperers
Or watch it on YouTube
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Keep Thriving!
Brad Gile0
