Some performance problems are not caused by a lack of talent. They come from a person and an organization no longer agreeing about the work, the standard, or who gets to decide.
The employee occupied a broad role: website development, marketing, branding, and helping solve complicated problems across our property-management systems. It was a catch-all role in the way small businesses often need someone to be a catch-all.
A broad role carries ambiguity. That made our obligation to provide direction more important. We gave design guidance, explained where we wanted to go, and identified the pieces the finished product needed to include.
The results repeatedly left much of that guidance out. The product was not visually where it needed to be, and only a fraction of the requested work would appear. When we asked about the missing pieces, the answer was often not a clarifying question or an explanation of a constraint. It was that we should not want those things in the first place.
Ownership is not unilateral authority
We wanted the employee to think. We wanted them to bring ideas, challenge weak assumptions, and help the company see problems differently. But taking ownership of a role is not the same as taking ownership of the company’s decisions.
There is a useful distinction between advice and authority. Good advice can challenge the owner’s judgment. It can expose a mistake and change the direction. But the person giving the advice does not automatically inherit the decision.
I have written elsewhere about why leaders should seek expert advice while keeping responsibility for the decision. The same distinction applies inside a team. The employee should contribute judgment. The organization still defines the outcome it is paying to produce.
When we narrowed the feedback—this part of the assignment is incomplete; this guidance was not incorporated; help us understand why—there sometimes was no answer. The conversation returned to whether our direction was the right direction.
Initiative serves the mission. It does not silently replace it.
When coaching stops producing change
Feedback is part of the job. Leaders should be clear about what is not working, listen for information they may have missed, and give a person a fair opportunity to improve.
But feedback is not progress by itself. A conversation can feel productive while the work remains unchanged.
The clearest signal was no longer a disagreement about design. The work activity we could observe showed substantial time being spent on things unrelated to the job while the assigned work remained unfinished. The employee had disengaged before the employment relationship formally ended.
I did not begin the next conversation with an accusation. I said, in substance: I have noticed this activity. I have noticed that you seem frustrated and unhappy. Talk to me.
The conversation felt constructive. We left it with an opportunity for things to change.
A week or two later, the performance had not changed. The attitude had not changed. More coaching was not producing a different outcome.
Soft words do not require a soft standard
The final meeting did not need anger or humiliation. I said that the employee’s time with us had come to an end. I thanked them for what they had contributed and for what the experience had taught us. We wished them well and provided two weeks of severance.
That was the strong-arm decision delivered with gentle hands.
You can respect someone’s humanity without pretending the employment relationship is still working.
An employee deserves clarity, dignity, and an honest opportunity to respond. The business also needs acceptable work. It has obligations to customers, owners, vendors, and the other employees whose livelihoods depend on it functioning well.
Keeping someone indefinitely in a role that is not working is not automatically compassionate. It can shift the unfinished work onto everyone else while allowing frustration to grow on both sides.
You cannot control alignment
I learned that some people do not want to work within a particular organization’s style, guidance, or perspective. That does not necessarily make them incapable of useful work somewhere else. It means this relationship is not producing what either side needs.
A leader cannot control another person into alignment. The leader can explain the outcome, make the standard concrete, invite questions, give feedback, and allow time for a response. Eventually, the leader must judge the work that actually follows.
When the response never arrives, the honest decision may be to end the relationship, release the person to pursue a better fit, and try again.
Be soft with the person. Be clear about the work. Be firm about the standard.
This is work I actually do. If you’re in that stretch, that’s a conversation I’m willing to have.
Working through a difficult performance decision?Start a conversation →