Whether, you know, what people are allowed, how they're allowed to manage, and how they want to manage and how they're allowed to manage it, because of the organizations. And then there's also that aspect of who becomes a manager based on what the organization, you know, what the organization values, what's important to them. Because, like, I've got a friend who's useless, he's utterly useless, but he's very good at getting his way. It's always been good at getting his way, since we were kids.
And he's been like sea level manager for like 15 years, because he can play the game. I'd like to work for him, but yeah. Well, also, while we still have these archaic ways of promoting people, you have to go through an interview. You'll get people who do, well, interviews.
Anyway, yes, and you did have a suggestion about talking of the challenge of dealing with performance. Do you feel up to? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can talk about it. This is a big one.
Yes, yes, I wonder if any of our listeners will stop by and enjoy, oh hello, listeners. Yeah, come and take a seat. We're about to start the conversation on, well, I don't know, I was asking a team about the challenge of dealing with performance, because this, listeners, if you want to take a seat, because this is going to be a long one, maybe we'll wrap up in 20 minutes as we have, but maybe we'll maybe we won. So you're very welcome to join us.
I actually once had like very rarely do I seek advice, but this was one of it. And it is that I find it so hard to hold people to account when their performance was not good. And funnily enough, in a previous coffee, we were talking about, you know, leading becoming a manager when you've been an individual contributor. And something that I had a lot of experience with was being in charge of my friends and having worked with people for so long that we were very good friends who, the way that I run that company and the projects, you wouldn't feel that I was pulling the strings.
In fact, I had sometimes people say, oh, we directed it ourselves when actually I was the one behind what was going on. But because I knew that they valued and they enjoyed the experience of being a whole and ensemble rather than being directed. And also I was always trying to give them opportunities for growth and stuff. And then when I heard that they hadn't done well, I always, I just, you know, the conditions weren't great.
We weren't loaded with money. We all put a lot of extra time for no money, just for the joy of playing and being together. And then I always thought, oh, no, I don't want anything to spoil the experience. And actually, so to advise for this is one of the few times in this person basically, it's such a mean pillar.
You're a good person. Just remember that. And it's so valuable. So valuable.
Just that. Just that. I'm going to the context. How did that help you?
Well, in different ways, oh, that's a very difficult question actually, because it's just an instinct that I know it helped me. So how did it help me? One is that it stops me from having any preconceptions that I'm telling someone off, for example, or that I'm trying to, and I'm thinking that those preconceptions are not there. And then I think, well, the person is not going to experience it like that.
And also knowing that if I am a good person, then I'm a good person all the time. Therefore, if I have to have a difficult conversation, that's okay. People know I'm a good person. Because it might be a bad person.
Yeah. And also people already know that. I mean, I know you've read it as well. And we didn't bring our books with us today, but radical candor was such a book that gave me the language for that.
And also it helped me lay down the foundations for when things happen. And there is that difficult conversation because the woman who wrote it had that same thing. It was the same thing that someone was not performing well. And she didn't want to tell them, I mean, I'm way because she knew and would upset them.
And then it was too late. Yeah. I think that you're right. There's two parts.
One is that we feel like we're being mean when we give people constructive feedback. When we tell them that they're doing something that they shouldn't be doing or that they should be doing something better than they are doing it. Because we don't like getting their feedback. So we don't like giving it to other people.
And we don't want them to dislike us. And we don't want to feel bad about ourselves. So it can be a real roadblock there because you feel like, I'm going to tell them this. They're going to hate me.
I'm going to feel like garbage. And that all sucks. And then there's the other part of it, which is the, if you don't do it, then you're actually also in a way damaging the relationship. Yeah.
Well, I've had, as a teacher, I've had that. I've had not knowing how to improve someone's performance, damage my relationship when they realize later that I hadn't helped them to improve it. Anyway, that's another story. But again, it was just this, the same thing.
It's got to do with, and it's all in my head because, and I'm going to talk about me rather than we, because it's a perception. Like that person obviously, the student obviously wanted me to tell them what they could improve on so that they could be better. And then when I think you just said that we don't like to get bad feedback, it's just calling it that for now. Actually, I don't mind it.
In fact, I love it. It's hurtful in the moment because nobody wants to mess up. But if you don't know that you're doing something, or if you don't know that something has had a consequence, how on earth are you going to change? Yeah.
I mean, radical Canada, the thing that I really loved, there's a lot to love about that, about the book and the way that Kim Scott tells, like explains her theories. The thing that I really loved about it was that has to come from a place of care. And that, like, that's a big shift. I'm thinking of some of the more difficult conversations that I've had.
And when, if I was able to get past my own defensiveness, if I was able to set aside my baggage and my pre-putting up my shields and getting ready to go in bad on thinking, oh, what about this? And they might say this and they're a bad person. They're all the little mental games we play with ourselves to try and trick ourselves into doing something we don't want to do. If I was able to get past all that and try and take a view of what might it mean for the person and how do I want them to get through it?
Generally speaking, it went pretty well. And I always felt like a hell of a lot better afterwards than I did before. And that's a great learning as well, is that actually what we're doing, if we're not careful in seeing how we approach managing poor performance, is that there's the danger of making it all about ourselves rather than what it is, which is about helping the other person or however, or making our work better, whatever, it's like we're putting the focus on us. You know, our issues are not important here because we've got a deal with this.
Interesting what you said about the radical candor saying, yeah, all of this needs to come from a place of care. I think that's when that coach said about you're a good person. Maybe that was it. It was like, look, this is coming from a good place.
So just deal with it. And trust also that whatever happens, it's good and it will be better. And I have to say, I'm feeling so good. These coffees are a bit like therapy sometimes.
What do we mean? Because I've just realized that I recently did have conversations where actually I did have to have a question about poor performance. I just realized that. So I've learned something along the way in the last 30 years.
Yeah. I still struggle with it a lot. And the thing is, I've had situations where I haven't addressed things that I should have addressed and it's been fine. And I've had situations where I haven't addressed things that I should have addressed and it's been damaging.
Some of those I still think on balance, it was okay. And then there's been ones where I've addressed it and it's been fantastic and there's been ones where I've addressed it and it's been terrible, where it's made it worse. It was just complicated with complicated people. I think one of the mistakes that people make is trying to oversimplify it.
I've had situations where I was fighting with managers who wanted to address what they saw as poor performance in a particular way. And I didn't like the way that they were going to approach it from in terms of what it said about our organization and how we thought about people. They were very difficult situations because managers don't like to be pulled up on that sort of stuff. It's one of the things I'm meant to be in control of.
You don't get to redo it, so you just don't know. I think also what I think helps and I mean looking back, it's so funny because I think this is going to completely philosophic. I don't know if anyone sitting around us wants to hear this, but this is when I realize that life is so finite. I think, oh, I'd love to go back to that time in my life while it ain't going to happen.
That was that and there's nothing similar. But I think that if I'd thought about this before the importance of making it regular, that I mean, you call it the one to one so whatever, but really making it very regular talking about how people are doing and always being ready to have those conversations that are a bit more difficult. I think that's something that can then mean that we don't get into situations where we feel so uncomfortable that we're having to really overthink how we're doing this. Whereas if we've really got used to in some way, it's not even about giving feedback, it's just about staying on top.
I don't know what it is. No, you're absolutely. But then there's always these polarities, right? There's always these, because you can't micromenage people, which means you can't be on them all the time every time.
No, no, no. But you also do need to, you can't build up and then try and address it in one big. And that's, I made that mistake a lot, particularly when I first moved into management where there would be a lot of little instances and you're like, ah, it's a little thing where I'm not going to make a big deal of it. No, it happened again.
Okay, fine. And then eventually you go, right, that's it. It's happened 15 times already. And you go to the person and say, here's the single girl.
It's time they're like, why didn't you have a time? Why this big reaction? If it happened 15 times, where were my other 15 occasions to hear about this? So we all do.
We all do. There's a balance to it. But going back to the side, do you move? Oh, sorry.
Yeah. You know, the side of everything finite, right, is something, you know, I've had to fire quite a few people. They're like four clients and, you know, situations where I literally just walked into, I didn't know anyone from Adam and I've had to like negotiate a firing. Oh, I like in that film.
Yeah, exactly. But much, much worth looking at without all the planes. But, um, and also, you know, having to fire people directly, which is never pleasant. And if you think about it from the perspective of, like, I've been fired and it's a blow.
It's a real blow. It's stayed with me for a long time, took me a long time to recover from it. So I think in those situations, in those difficult conversations, when you're talking about performance, because ultimately performance leads to getting fired, ball performance will lead to losing control. If you're approaching it from the perspective that this is a big moment for this individual and what do I want the impact on them to be?
Because too often, I think that the manager impact, I'm not a bit of a rat here, but is our objective is X. This person is not helping us get to X. This is business. If you're not helping us get to X, you're out.
And they treat it just as that, like it's some sort of transaction. And that is very difficult for a human being to suddenly, you know, you meant to be part of the team, you meant to be connected to everybody, we're all part of this together, we've got our values up on the wall and we really, you know, we're people first and all this and stuff. But all of a sudden, you're not contributing to X and you just chucked out like a business crap metal. Like, that's really damaging to that person, to their psyche.
And also everybody else looks at it and goes, yeah, how much is there a sub-front? And they go, well, that's how we treat people around here. And I definitely don't want to end up getting treated like that. So I think in those situations, if you're able to like do it in a way where there's some vulnerability and you're staying real in it, that you can get to outcomes.
Maybe you've got to bend yourself a little more out of shape or go through, you know, behaving ways which are awkward or have conversations which feel uncomfortable or excruciating, but it can be very meaningful for yourself and particularly for the other person. And something else that came to mind, did you read, oh, I don't even remember the name now, it was Les LoBloc when he was working at Google. He's got this book that was very big. I think it's something like making work work or something like this.
Work rules. Yeah. I've got it up here. I haven't read it because I've read it.
Oh, it's really lovely to read. As in, you know, it's one of how it's just like perfect workplace, but not perfect workplace, but it's got loads of really interesting stuff. And one of the things he talks about, and again, what he describes is that recognizing that people sometimes don't thrive in some environments. So maybe someone is not doing great because this is not the best place for them to be.
And I would even say role, et cetera. And he describes the real recognition of that in the organization in Google and how they tried then to find if there's other places in the organization where they might thrive. And only when, I mean, I don't know the process. I can't remember, you know, but I like, I'm talking about the concept of it.
And only when they say, okay, this person's just not going to thrive here. Do they help them to find a job somewhere else? And I think for me, what I really like about that is that we are saying, and I've had this recently, it's like when I've had to finish a contract with someone, I've also thought, well, why didn't this work? So they weren't performing like I wanted them to.
What was my role in that as well? So I'm not saying that if someone's not performing that we say, what are we doing? But actually looking at the context, and even if in the end, we do say, well, you're just not working here, this is not the place. But I think having that conversation also allows the person to say, well, I didn't thrive here.
Maybe they're somewhere else instead of just leaving somewhere thinking that you're not worth it. Yeah, yeah, that's you're 100% correct. And that's something I saw time and time again is that it becomes easier if you can demonize the person. If you go, this person is never on time.
They're never on time, but they work. I always have to chase them. They're totally useless. We've got to get rid of them.
And you make it all about this failing and there's no redeeming qualities. And then they try and get rid of them. And it's not fair. It's not true.
And it means that the person bears the whole brunt of it. Now, something that I was very aware of at Shield was, well, I owned the business or I come out of the business, I hired the first like 30, 40 people and was managing the person who hired the next ones. So there wasn't any scenario where I wasn't responsible. There was no scenario where I could say this was all someone else's fault and I had nothing to do with this.
My hands were all over it, however you want to put it in the book or try it. And so I like, if we hired somebody, if you hire someone and they were really a terrible person, you should hire them. And that's your fault because you've got something wrong with your hiring process. If you hire somebody and put them in a position where they can't succeed, well, again, that's your fault because you should have selected better.
If you hired somebody and you thought they were good, but then they didn't perform well, well, did you make the expectations clear or did you not? Because if you didn't make the expectations clear, again, that's your fault. You know, even having done all of that, there was still going to be situations where it doesn't work out. But I think it's important and it makes a big difference if you approach it from that position that, look, you're a good person.
It's not just I'm a good person. You're a good person. I can see you have good qualities. You know, I can see that you're trying.
I can see that you're, you know, you're wonderful with customers. I can see that you have a real thrill for learning about people. I can see that you're talking to me and I can see that you're fantastic, but your reports aren't on time. You haven't been able to get them on time.
And in this role, in this organization, that's a key thing. We just can't function without it. So it doesn't mean the person's going to be like, oh, you know what? You're totally right.
Yeah. Let me go. Like I'm a friend of a phone, but you're doing it in a way that's real. Like if you're trying to correct their performance, then you have to show that balance because it can't all be stick.
You've got to give them some incentive, you know, some motivation to want to stay and to want to be good at their job and to recognize that they're adding value. And if they're not going to stay with your organization, if you are going to fire them for performance, well, it's better for you if you have a realistic understanding of what they did well and what they did, probably because you've got a better chance of finding somebody who makes all the criteria next time. And also you leave them in a much better position to get on with their life and to get into find a situation that's going to work well for them. And I think that in that way, processes are really useful just to have something to hang on to as in the, you know, the grievance procedures and all that and all the performance management of saying, okay, this is what's not working.
This is our plan to make it work and we will review and if it doesn't get better, because there's then there's an understanding as well as all the legal stuff, of course, we're not going to go there. But hopefully in an ideal world, it gets both people on the same page and saying, okay, this is what we need to fix and if we can't fix it, then it's not fixable. All of those processes are much maligned, you know, and all of the steps that we have to go through in terms of, you know, if you don't want to end up at a labor tribunal or at Fair Work or whatever, you know, and people like, oh, we have to do all of this stuff, why can't we just fire people? So it's all of these processes.
The intent behind those processes is exactly that. It's to make sure that there's clarity, to make sure that people have an understanding of it. Unfortunately, you know, a lot of the time it's treated as a box technique, which is completely the opposite effect. But, you know, that whole concept of addressing, of managing performance, it comes down to the idea of clarity, right?
I think it's in that radical plan that it's like, clear is kind, unclear is unkind. In my mind, that means not just focusing on poor performance, but on performance as a whole and setting clear expectations and really seeing the person. Because if the person wants to change, like the person has to want to change in order for them to be able to address it. Yeah, yeah.
I forget that, of course, your company used to be all about employing people for others. No, and running. Do you know a lot of employment law and stuff like that? More than I forget about that too.
I forget about that too. I forget about it. I just wonder if anyone around the table has not any questions about law, but actually any stuff about any questions or if they want to ask your experience on it. And of course, mine, but mine is limited and in another area.
But I just forgot about that for, yeah, I wonder if anyone wants to email management cafe podcast at gmail.com with some questions for Tim or some topics for discussion. That would be really nice. That would be really nice. That would be really nice.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. In fact, it was for us, it was something that initially we dreaded and then we had a wonderful team dealing with it. We dreaded what?
Firing people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Firing people.
Yeah. You know, risky, expensive, you know, might have been caught in line, so stuff. But we challenged our team to do it in a way that they felt proud of, you know, where they thought they were genuinely helping people. And, you know, we had the company value of being human and we wanted them to do the work in such a way that they were, that they were being human and treating the individual who was having a performance manager or who was losing their job with as much kindness as we could within the circumstances.
And I did it. Our team did an amazing job of that, I think. And we never once went to court. Yeah.
And we had a lot of people who were at management, but if you want to share some experiences and you want them to be anonymous, then just use our email address, management.ca.com, because I think it'd be really, really nice to hear some personal stories and also especially that you say if there's any moments of pride, I think that's such a nice way of thinking about this. Is this a moment that I can be proud of? That's quite a good spin, you know, way. Well, you think about it, like, you know, it's going to be a very meaningful moment for them and for you.
And so, I mean, there's a whole whole lot more we could talk about. Yeah, I even went through some of those conversations and I would go into it thinking, you know, how am I feeling? How do I want to feel? I write down the emotions.
How are they feeling? How do I want them to feel during the conversation? How do I want them to feel afterwards? And you know, I thought those exercises super helpful to just try to understand all the different things that might be going on.
Amazing. Well, that's my coffee done. I don't want to. I don't want to.
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