5 ms·

I see a lot of good answers here, about leading by example and such and I've been in many instances where that's worked. But I'm in a new pickle.these days , I

I see a lot of good answers here, about leading by example and such and I've been in many instances where that's worked. But I'm in a new pickle.these days , I have a team with two duds...like absolutely no performance. I used to think they were willfully gaming the system but after a few frank conversations I feel like they live in a alternate dimension. Person A , senior by experience and pay grade couldn't sharpen a pencil if u gave him an electric sharpener and you could tell person B to meet you in the caf for lunch and he'd get on a bus and call you from butchers. I have no idea how these people.got where they are... We work on somewhat safety critical systems in a hot industry so you would expect some level of competence. But Nada. They feel....entitled to payment but feel no obligation to deliver anything. Have no sense of work ethic, workmanship, quality, barely communicates, no sense of teamwork. I'm at my wits end. I complained but that only turned into to more work for me to manufacture work they are willing or able to do and the tracking the progress. I gave up on that pretty quick. Talked to both of em 1-1 and learned a lot and reviewed some horrendous code and decided that it was better to have them not do anything. Pulled them both off deliverables and gave them meaningless tasks. This is all while the team is chugging away. Just today we have a pitch coming up and I had given A the task of making the deck, mind you not the content...just the .PPTX file and chasing people to get it done , and he managed to pick some god awful pos theme, so I told him "hey you know this theme isn't very presentable" ...and he told me to change it if I didn't like it. And to B I gave a wild goose chase. I could have either of them touch the code before the release. HR and management didn't like this...they want me go give em real work...so they can mess it all up...because the rest of us can always undo it...

pas 5y ago
if you are responsible for something (and accept that responsibility, and sincerely try to be accountable for it) but you don't have actual control over it, then you're on a ship with a hyperdrive to burnout town.
wanderingmind 5y ago
The people who hired them and refusing to fire them are a bigger problem to your organisation than those two people.
- meowtimemania 5y ago
  I’m a great interviewer but burnout quickly. I wouldn’t criticize the org for hiring someone, but I agree they should be criticized for not firing.
- caffeine 5y ago
  I think it’s one of the most important questions you can ask in an interview (as the applicant): does the organisation allow poor performers to stay in their roles? How is performance measured, and how is poor performance treated? Then you can decide if you like the answers. For me personally, an answer like “performance is evaluated on (X objective criteria). Poor performers are given 3 months to demonstrate improvement on said criteria and then managed out” is good. A refusal to answer, or waffling about how much we believe in our people, how our process ensures we don’t hire bad performers, how we develop people, etc. is bad.
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    Devil's advocate: Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged? (I'll also note that this query will lead to the interviewers wondering things like "Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system? Or are they going to try and get people they disagree with fired? Are they trying to play any games in general?" etc...)
    - caffeine 5y ago
      > Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged? It isn’t necessarily, like if you are about to be employee #1. But even then you want to hear that the person (presumably cofounder) you’re talking to has considered it and will move useless ppl on. It’s not black and white. You would be looking for a better answer from a more established team. Consider Netflix famous presentation where it states right in there what they will do, because “it’s a sports team not a family” and they understand the massive collateral damage a single bad performer can have. > Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system? Yes it’s possible but a senior person at a company that does in fact have high-performing management probably won’t think that, especially if you ask it tactfully and with context. (“I have had some previous experiences where a single poor performer really dragged down the performance and morale of the whole team, how would you handle something like that here?”)

pas 5y ago

if you are responsible for something (and accept that responsibility, and sincerely try to be accountable for it) but you don't have actual control over it, then you're on a ship with a hyperdrive to burnout town.

wanderingmind 5y ago

The people who hired them and refusing to fire them are a bigger problem to your organisation than those two people.

meowtimemania 5y ago
I’m a great interviewer but burnout quickly. I wouldn’t criticize the org for hiring someone, but I agree they should be criticized for not firing.
caffeine 5y ago
I think it’s one of the most important questions you can ask in an interview (as the applicant): does the organisation allow poor performers to stay in their roles? How is performance measured, and how is poor performance treated? Then you can decide if you like the answers. For me personally, an answer like “performance is evaluated on (X objective criteria). Poor performers are given 3 months to demonstrate improvement on said criteria and then managed out” is good. A refusal to answer, or waffling about how much we believe in our people, how our process ensures we don’t hire bad performers, how we develop people, etc. is bad.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Devil's advocate: Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged? (I'll also note that this query will lead to the interviewers wondering things like "Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system? Or are they going to try and get people they disagree with fired? Are they trying to play any games in general?" etc...)
  - caffeine 5y ago
    > Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged? It isn’t necessarily, like if you are about to be employee #1. But even then you want to hear that the person (presumably cofounder) you’re talking to has considered it and will move useless ppl on. It’s not black and white. You would be looking for a better answer from a more established team. Consider Netflix famous presentation where it states right in there what they will do, because “it’s a sports team not a family” and they understand the massive collateral damage a single bad performer can have. > Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system? Yes it’s possible but a senior person at a company that does in fact have high-performing management probably won’t think that, especially if you ask it tactfully and with context. (“I have had some previous experiences where a single poor performer really dragged down the performance and morale of the whole team, how would you handle something like that here?”)