A reader writes:
My company has a challenging employee, Norman. Norman has many years of experience, which he takes as evidence that he’s good at his job. But he’s … not. When he works on a project, he gets caught up in weird details — like trying to build features that the client didn’t ask for and that don’t work properly — and then does a sloppy job implementing them. I believe (but can’t prove) that he sometimes skips our quality control process. He has submitted work in the past that is honestly embarrassing. Norman also regularly makes offensive jokes and comments in the office. We tell him when a comment is inappropriate, and he’ll stop in the moment, but then he says other inappropriate things later.
Previous managers have not addressed Newman’s performance systematically, and he has never been on a formal improvement plan. Possibly as a result, Norman does not believe that he has performance issues.
A new manager, Elaine, is about to take over this department. Elaine has previously worked on this team as a peer to Norman (she is being promoted to manager) so she is aware of the issues with him, and she’s committed to addressing them. But where do you start with an employee who has been underperforming for a long time? What does that first conversation look like, and when do you have it? Which of Norman’s issues should she address first?
I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
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