Submitted by jespasac on
in
Forums
Hi all,
Here is a sort of summary about the situation:
* One of my directs was the Lead of the team before my boss promoted my in that position.
* The same direct apply for the Line Manger position I got a couple of months ago.
* The same direct is 43 years old and, frankly speaking, medium-low profile technician.
* The same direct had has performance problems the last 3 years.
* The same direct (High C but with not so high technical skills) has been even questioning my authority when I was his Lead
So, in order to engage him again I proposed to him to be again the Lead but achieving/improving the with the next conditions/topics:
* Team player (since he was performing bad and being down, he was blaming other for their mistakes, having a non-professional attitude)
* Go with my authority hand-by-hand. The Lead is from my humble point of view a key player in the team, so I need to get the best relationship with him.
* Update his technical knowledge and being a remarkable technician.
My "offer" is as follows:
- He will get a "Acting Technical Lead" position for 6/8 months. Over that time I will coach him and metric his performance in the three mentioned points above.
- If he's performing well I will offer to him the same Lead position by contract.
My two major concerns in here are:
- I'm not sure he will reach the mentioned topics. I need to follow up almost everything. He lacks a lot of energy and, which is the worst, he's not seeing the most basic point about being a Lead.
- He could perform great over the "acting period" and, when he's getting the position by contract, go back again to misbehaving. That will be a hell for me and it will put in evidence my lack of competence about choosing the right person for the Lead position.
So....?
No one?
Well, it seems this thread is not interesting at all. At the end, I had to take the decision: demote him as an Acting Lead. Basically:
* he improved a bit his performance, but not enough to be a reference for the rest of the team as a Lead
* he still lacking tons of energy: always tired, always negative, always blaming someone else...
* he's not respecting me
I guess the next step will be to start coaching him with metrics/deadlines and so on, 'cause if he doesn't change at all, eventually he will get fired.
Coaching, coaching, coaching
I think you're right to focus on coaching for this poor performing direct. Are you doing one-on-ones? What have you learned in those meetings about what he might want to do next in his career, and how he thinks he can get there? Do his impressions of "how to get there" match the reality of your organization?
"You want to move into a position like Bob did. Bob got there because he has these kinds of skills. Let's work on developing those skills for you, so you can do that too." Some of those skills may be technical, some may be interpersonal, but they all count.
If you don't know what your direct wants, you might step back and work on finding that out before working on a coaching plan. You want to get buy-in from your direct in order to make this successful.
flexiblefine
Houston, Texas, USA
DiSC: 1476