Photo by Alina Vilchenko
What do you do if someone is no longer willing to work?
I discovered this matrix during a workshop at the Entrepreneurs Circle. It really helped me understand the options available when coaching a person who hasn’t engaged fully at work.
The Situational Leadership Model, introduced in the 1970s by Paul Hershey and Ken Blanchard, is explained more fully in the next chapter.
This matrix is part of that model. It unlocked some clarity for me. There is no ‘one size fits all’ way to manage and coach someone.
When people speak about nature, they often say “only the fittest survive”. In my view, that’s not the whole story.
The most successful species are the ones which adapt the most effectively to the circumstances in which they find themselves. The ability to adapt is what humans are famous for.
However not all leaders seem to be able to manage it!
Look at what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. All those restaurants which turned on a sixpence to offer takeaways or deliveries came through it, because they adapted. Those businesses which saw the pandemic as an opportunity, instead of a threat, thrived. Some businesses closed. It’s not as clear cut as that, but it is something to think about.
Nigel Botterill is the MD of the Entrepreneurs Circle and he tells a story of a hotel owner he was working with. She had a lovely, little, independent hotel. She was a bit of a ‘technophobe’. As the Internet came online, he asked her about her plans to adapt her marketing to include the Internet.
He asked, “What’s your strategy for online marketing?”
She replied, “I’m hoping that the Internet goes away.”
I don’t think she was an adapter.
Hope is not a strategy. (I heard that on a podcast somewhere, but I can’t remember where.)
We’re in a similar situation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) now – I wonder whether she is still in business and whether she is still hoping.
I challenge leaders to adapt how they interact with people all the time. This means customers and, more significantly, employees.
Adapting to meet the best way the others around need you to be, as best you can, whilst still remaining authentic is the mark of a great leader.
The Skill vs Will Matrix above is just a model, and, of course, there are no actual boxes you put people into. It is just a guide to help you identify what might be going on if someone’s work is not at the standard you had expected*. It is more that you need to unpick what is actually going on.
Is it because the person doesn’t have the skill yet?
Is it because the person is not willing to engage?
(*Note: We will deal with CLEARLY DEFINED EXPECTATIONS a little later. Let’s assume you have mastered that part already.)
When using the matrix with clients for whom there is an employee performance issue, I ask the following three questions:
- When you consider your employees, which boxes would you put individuals in?
- Which box has the most dangerous combination?
- What are your responsibilities in response to individuals in each box?
Notes:
- Remember that people do not behave in boxes – it’s just a model.
- The activity is much more sophisticated than what is described in those three questions.
- I urge you to consider that all performance issues with employees start with you as their leader. It always starts with you.
- The most important person’s performance to manage is your own.
Answers to questions 2 and 3 usually cover conversations around the following:
2) A highly willing, poorly skilled employee can cause quite a bit of damage. That’s why it is crucial to have a great induction programme, an ongoing staff development programme, excellent review processes, effective communication and highly skilled managers and leaders.
3) If a person is highly skilled, yet unwilling to perform well, how will you know that? What will you be seeing, hearing, feeling? How will you respond? Your responsibility is to notice things, so that it doesn’t get to this point! If it does, are you confident and competent to have the conversation to deal with this? Are you willing to accept feedback about your leadership, your processes and your business, generally? If you listen carefully, are you committed to resolving it, having had the conversation?
There is nothing worse for an employee than to explain what the barriers are, which are preventing them from achieving well and to be heard describing how frustrating that is, only to discover that the person they spoke to is not going to take any action.
That’s when they leave.
I am speaking from experience here. You may remember from Part One of this book that I have left several employment situations.
You might be familiar with INSET days in education establishments, you know, the days the schools or colleges are closed for staff development.
I did attend many extremely effective training sessions and learnt a great deal. However, back in the days when I worked at a less effective establishment, I also attended some rubbish sessions which were frankly a very expensive waste of everyone’s time.
We were regularly invited to work in groups with flip chart paper and marker pens to discuss and note down answers to questions about how things could be improved. We dutifully provided helpful information about processes, equipment, barriers to our effectiveness and things which were generally easy to resolve.
The Senior leadership team would dutifully gather the flip chart sheets in and collate the information.
We NEVER heard anything back or noticed any changes. There was only so much of that I could bear.
The final straw in this category of things which managers do which are a pointless waste of valuable time (particularly in larger organisations) are staff surveys.
Alongside the INSET workshop at my college was the annual staff ‘stress survey’, which we were compelled to respond to in a very controlling way.
(Of course it was anonymous!)
I watched exhausted colleagues (with incredibly low morale and levels of stress) dutifully complete and return the survey having poured out their hearts and explained what had been causing them to feel so stressed.
I knew that it was never going to change anything. It was going to tick a box for the impending OFSTED or Investors in People accreditation. I was wise to the tick-box activities which had to be carried out. Others might not have been.
Nothing was done to resolve the stress-causing barriers to effectiveness. Nothing ever changed to improve that. Having been asked to provide the information, my colleagues naively thought that steps would be taken to make things better.
Their hearts sank when they realised the exercise was pointless. It was worse than not having been asked about their stress levels in the first place! (See Chapter 48: The Stockdale Paradox).
Finally, on this matrix, I would ask about the bottom left corner where you might identity some non-performers with low skill and low will.
Some roles do not require much skill. That’s OK, provided people are willing.
The discovery I have made throughout my career as an employed person and as a leadership coach is this: when somebody recruits a person who subsequently becomes unwilling and remains unskilled, it appears to be quite a difficult decision/activity to manage the performance of that person.
It is often because of a lack of effective recruitment processes leading to a lack of a review of performance which results in a probation period passing and the tough conversation not happening.
In addition to this is the other matter of some people only want to say nice things to people at work. There is more on this later.
Hopefully you are not reading this feeling a bit embarrassed.
I have worked with several business owners who were unable to face the brutal truth that their recruitment choice was a poor one. The longer it went unacknowledged, the worse the situation became.
I’m not willing to coach people who can’t admit they have made a mistake.
Admitting your mistakes as a leader is a key behaviour for building trust.
If you would like to explore a way to become an Even Better Leader with me , you can book your free consultation via a zoom session here…