Interview. Killed it. Onboarding. Nailed it. Training. What a breeze! 

This person is destined to be a superstar. 

Independent work, day to day performance and development, hitting metrics and being a stellar addition. More like super disappointment.   

It’s difficult when you invest in and have deep confidence in a new hire, just to have them not reach the bar once they are solo. You have given them the tools, your team has stepped up to teach them the skills necessary to do the job, they have embraced the culture and have made friends with their peers, but yet they just can’t cut it.  

Inversely, our long term people can show signs of struggle or decreased investment. Business structure, management changes, and the inevitable burnout contribute to a decline in performance. They have been invested in, shown dedication and devotion, and have historically shown that they are a high value employee but when sloppy work, repeated mistakes, and a newly developed less than perky attitude occur, these can be signs that something is a miss. 

Do you cut your losses and show them the door? Is it worth spending more time and expending further resources? 

The answer is simply not simple. But getting there is, as a leader you have to ask yourself a series of easy questions to feel comfortable and secure in making the next decision. 

• Does this person want to be here? 
• Do they seem invested in learning, developing, and are committed to growth? 
• Do you feel there is benefit in maintaining their presence within the organization?

If the answer is yes to these queries you may very well have an employee that doesn’t inherently suck, but is just in the wrong seat. 

Recently my family has taken in a teenage girl. She’s a good kid with the potential to be a great grown up. Her last few years have been less than stellar academically. She lacked the support, resources, and ambition to go all in, but mostly not going at all. She was on a path going nowhere fast. No education, no desire to have responsibility, no reason to wake up before mid afternoon. At only fourteen years old, she was headed in the wrong direction, with little to no support to be better. 

However, when push came shove, she chose, actually pleaded for the opportunity to achieve her goals. She has been with us for close to eight weeks. During this time, she has been registered for high school, attended the freshman orientation, gotten up on time without assistance, shown responsibility in the household, and most recently secured a part time job. 

Deep down she always wanted to succeed, she was just in the wrong place.

When our people, regardless if they are new or tenured, start to digress it is imperative that all factors need to be investigated. If we are invested in our people, and them to us, we owe each other the opportunity to discover why someone is no longer, or was unable to perform to an acceptable standard. 

Listen to your people’s words and actions, be open to feedback, and think outside the corporate box. Sometimes your future rockstar is sitting in the crowd waiting to be called on stage.