Get better performance
Every company has them. That batch of employees who exemplify your corporate culture to a tee. They work hard, get along with everyone and always start the day looking to make a positive impact. But some of those employees aren’t the strongest performers when it comes to results.
You have to make an effort to work with those types of employees, but you have to keep in mind that the bottom line does matter.
“At the end of the day, we don’t pay or promote for effort,” he says. “We pay and promote for performance. But I think you do everything you can to work with people whose hearts are in the right place and who are making a sincere effort to improve and get it.”
In fact, you may have created the problem yourself by promoting an employee out of his or her comfort zone.
“The hard thing about that circumstance is sometimes you find folks that were exceptional in a position maybe below the leadership level they’ve been promoted to,” he says. “Now, they are in a position of leadership where they are just kind of one step above their capability. It’s really hard to keep somebody motivated by putting them back into a position that they feel they’ve got the ‘been there, done that,’ but where they are really good.”
But don’t give up on those employees without trying to improve their production.
“You can try and overcome the areas where they are weak by supporting them with other people who have strengths in those areas,” he says.
“And recognize them and celebrate them for where they are strong and exceptional, and try to back fill, if you will, with expertise from other folks who work with them or maybe work for them.”
Because a demotion can really be a shot to someone’s ego, you can avoid outright demoting people by simply doing an organizational shift.
“You put more direct leadership on top of them,” he says. “Not necessarily without changing their status or their position directly, but effectively recognizing they can’t perform at the level that they’re at. So, maybe organizationally, you can make a shift so that they can get the type of direction that they need to be successful.”
You have to be patient in these types of situations. Sullivan usually gives about three years to a person who buys in to the culture but is coming up short on the production end.
“If three years is the average, it’s probably about the right amount of time — maybe a little short on the people that are trying to improve,” he says.
Unfortunately, those people tend to leave your company and go back to the positions where they can excel at a different company.
“Oftentimes, if you’ve got that person that isn’t performing, but otherwise is with the culture, a lot of times, it’s a recognition that they ultimately might come to, although maybe not admit, and the organization does,” he says.
“Then, when they leave, it’s been a failure of the organization or of top leadership. That person leaves and goes on and is probably successful elsewhere with a greater self-awareness of what they are exceptional at and what they’re not so good at.”
But that doesn’t mean you simply give up and you don’t bother trying to help them stay with your company.
In addition, while you may feel like you’ve failed by promoting someone who isn’t fit for the new position, don’t let that make you hesitant on your promotion decisions in the future. That’s a lesson Sullivan’s father taught him, which he still uses today.
“You can’t let circumstances like that stymie your ability to keep promoting people because people most often will rise to the occasion,” he says. “You’ve got to maintain an environment where people feel like they will have opportunities for greater responsibility and greater authority. I think the lesson people need to take from that is you can’t let instances like that inhibit your desire to keep promoting people. You can’t be gun-shy.”
