The Employee's Perspective

In managing others we should consider two groups of people, those who think they are the best in their job, and those who know they are skirting the system. Let's consider the first group, those who think that they are doing their job better than anyone else in the company. These people have a difficult time understanding why they are not receiving greater recognition for their hard work. From their point of view, their contributions are largely ignored and they tend to resent their supervisor's ambivalence. Worse, they resent the attention their supervisors give to others for work seemingly inferior to their work. Do not be surprised if one day this employee decides that he is seeking greener pastures, needs to goes back to school, or some other seemingly reasonable endeavor. The real reason he is leaving is that in his mind you have not met his expectations for feedback.

Feedback is critically important, and will be considered in more detail at another time. For now, let's focus on the core experience of unfulfilled expectation for feedback from the point of view of the employee. He truly believes he is working to full capacity, and from his unique perspective, he is doing a great job. After all, no one has told him otherwise, so he is free to derive his own assessment of the quality of his work. An important issue that we must contend with, even as we begin to provide this employee additional feedback on his performance, is that the employee truly believes that he is meeting or exceeding the expectations for the job. When you take the time to provide "constructive criticism" the employee may view your coaching efforts as overly critical and unappreciative of his hard work. Such can be true even with the worst performing employees. All perspectives are derived from a point of view. The poor performing employee may be making a reasonable self-assessment based on his perspective. He cannot see things as you do, and thus he believes that he is performing well.

When you begin to help this under-performing employee be sure to obtain his self-assessment. If he believes that his performance is exemplary, but it is not, (and the employee is worth keeping) it may be beneficial to set smaller goals. If you inform the employee of the true state of affairs, that he is for example the worst performer in the company, the sudden loss of personal value may be too much for him to handle, significantly increasing the likelihood of leaving the company.

All of this may seem overly gentle, as if you are coddling the poor performing employee. Not so. You are managing the employee on an individual basis and recognizing that while performance standards have been fairly set for all employees, the steps one must take in reaching those standards must remain flexible. Without doubt there is a bright line to be drawn between evolving excellence and accepting deficiency. When you provide a corrective action to an employee, acknowledge the value of his current efforts, and then raise the bar slowly, decisively and consistently, so that your employee can acquire the necessary skills and perspective to achieve excellence as you have defined it.