“One of the most important roles of a CEO is to tear down barriers to people’s success.”
Typically, the clients I work with have self-implemented EOS. They’ve run their employees through the People Analyzer and GWC tools and determined they have — or at least think they have — the right people in the right seats. So what happens when they start wondering if the right person may actually in the wrong seat?
This scenario played out recently with one of my clients. Nate (I’ve changed his name), a home-run employee, was recently promoted to a managerial position. Before his promotion, the leadership team ran him through the People Analyzer and GWC to make sure this was the right move for him. Sure enough, he checked all the right boxes. The CEO felt strongly this promotion would put Nate, who loves the company and embodies its core values, in the right seat.
Fast-forward a few months and both Nate and the CEO are discontented. Nate is struggling with a critical aspect of his role and it’s starting to affect both the team’s morale and the company’s success.
Nate told me, “I can’t seem to understand how to manage inventory. It’s not coming naturally to me and I feel like I’m screwing it up.” The CEO told me, “We ran out of inventory last weekend and that’s simply unacceptable. I can’t understand why he’s not getting it.” They’re both frustrated, and an absolutely essential part of the business is failing. While Nate might still be the right person in the right seat, a difficult conversation about performance was imminent.
They’re never fun, but tough conversations are inevitable if you want to run the kind of company that attracts the best and the brightest. Here are seven important steps that help make those conversations more productive.
Begin by listing some things the employee is doing well.
CEO: “I want you to know I think you’re doing a great job running the team meetings and meeting your sales goals. Thank you for owning those responsibilities — it has helped me and the company so much.”State the current problem, including concrete examples.
CEO: “Making sure inventory remains at satisfactory levels is a critical part of your job, but we’ve run out of our bestsellers twice this month, and that is unacceptable.”Seek to understand and listen actively.
CEO: “Can you tell me why we have been running out of inventory.”Inquire what you can do to help the employee be successful.
CEO: “I’d like to work together to come up with a plan to help you improve in your inventory management skills. What do you feel you need from me to be successful?”Address each of the employee’s requests.
CEO: “Yes, I can arrange for you to have additional training on the inventory management software. I can also commit to giving you more one-on-one time. Please put a recurring weekly meeting on my calendar.”Reset expectations.
CEO: “My expectation is that going forward, we will no longer run out of inventory.”Summarize what you discussed in an email.
CEO: “Thank you for your time and openness to this conversation. I’d like to summarize what we discussed today. I heard you say you don’t feel you have the tools necessary to successfully manage inventory. Specifically, you’d like more training on the software and more one-on-one time with me, both of which I can give you. You are going to put a recurring weekly meeting on my calendar so we can touch base. My expectation is that you will continue manage inventory and that going forward, we will no longer run out of any of our products.”
Rather than assume the Nates of your world don’t have the chops for the job, address the issue head on as soon as it comes up so you can help set him up to be successful. And whatever you do, don’t avoid difficult conversations. Doing so leaves unresolved issues, growing resentments and disengaged employees, none of which help you take your company to the next level.
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