My clients are action oriented. They seek out challenges. They thrive on recovery, innovation, leading others, delighting customers, growing revenues, resolving problems and delight in the success of others. It is a joy and honour to work with them each and every day.

When asked, “What is one area in which you could improve, one situation in which you did not execute at your best?”, the answer is resoundingly similar: they did not address poor performance as quickly as they could have, should have, knew they wanted to, or needed to. This does not vary whether they lead telecommunications, management consulting, oil and gas, manufacturing, media, law, academia, healthcare or in other industries.

Why is this? There are a variety of factors:

• It is unpleasant and we naturally avoid unpleasant tasks.
• We feel ill-equipped for the conversation.
  • Is this employee (or CEO when you are the Board Chair) receiving all they need from me: feedback, mentoring, guidance, direction, clarity, assistance, time?
  • Is this person aware that I am dissatisfied or will this come out of left field?
  • Am I partially responsible because I promoted them/argued for them to be in this role, selected them or recruited them?
  • I am not yet prepared for this conversation; I need to identify examples before we have this conversation.
• We are nice people and we don’t like harming others.
  • The person may have long tenure.
  • They are “only” 2, 3, 5 years from retirement; I will let them finish their career here.
• We are already in the midst of much change or a big project…
  • She is the CIO and while she is under performing, we need to complete this ERP; it is already overdue and over budget.
  • I only accepted this role 24 months ago, so my management (or the board) will think replacing the CFO/CMO/VP Ops (you fill in the blank) will incur too much risk.
• The severance cost will be a big expense.
• I know them and can continue to work with them. If I bring on someone new, it will take more of my time.

These are all logical arguments. But if they were valid arguments – over the mid and long term – leaders would not say that they waited longer than they should have. Because in the mid term and long term surrounding yourself with the absolute best people and taking accountability for managing poor performance is always the best course of action.

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