All Posts

The story: I had a subordinate who was having performance issues. He couldn't do his job. It was just that simple. Only no one, at least no one in management, had noticed just how much he couldn't do his job. He was good at keeping 'smart' people around to lean on and doing just enough to get by. He could go through the motions, but the motions didn't yield great results. I began to notice when I started documenting all the things I came across that he'd touched and were wron

In the corporate Management Trap , we are taught that productivity is a flat line. We’re told that "100% effort" is a static setting on a thermostat—something you should be able to hit every Monday at 8:00 AM and sustain until Friday at 5:00 PM. You ever wake up and just know it's going to be a low capacity day? It took forever to turn off your brain to sleep and when you did, you didn't sleep well. I don't know if any of you do, but I dream vividly. To the point where I'll s

When They Can't Outperform You, They Re-write You In the corporate world, we have metrics for everything. If an employee has "poor performance," there’s a spreadsheet or app for that. It’s business. It’s objective. It's measurable. It’s fixable. But what happens when your performance is undeniable, yet you’re still treated like a "problem?" The low-performer gets a Business Audit. The High-Voltage Producer gets a Character Audit. One is about the work ; the other is Identity

In my last post, I was sure corrective action was on the verge, imminent even. How wrong was I. Here's what led up to that. My "audit" of this particular employee started about a year ago. He had wanted a promotion. Threw a fit when I didn't put him up for one. My boss agreed with my assessment, but because I didn't have any "proof" (aka "documentation"), it set off a series of events that led to a he said/she said "personality conflict" instead of the performance issue it wa