Help! I need to fix my team member

Posted by Sarah Hobbs

Traditional performance management encourages us to focus on weaknesses and how to fix them. But if you reflect on your own career, I’m sure there will be some weaknesses which you’ve tackled and made progress, while you’re still battling with others. In fact, you may still face challenges you’ve had for maybe 5 or 10 years – irrespective of how much “fixing” people have subjected you to.

Why?

1. Developing an area of weakness that’s a fundamental part of your personality and approach is really difficult. We all have strengths, and often have flipside weaknesses that arise out of these.
   
   
2. Tackling these flipside weaknesses (that are the consequence of your strengths) can hamstring people’s best strengths. For example, if you are highly innovative, you’re probably bad at following rules and processes to the letter. You just naturally think outside the box. If I put you in a Compliance role to teach you to follow rules, I’m likely to make you feel like leaving the organisation instead of firing your enthusiasm to develop! Another example is that quick-thinking, decisive people may not be good at the slower, quieter skills of listening and observing. Ask yourself – is this weakness due to inexperience (and can be developed) or is it a persistent weakness because it is the downside of a strength?
   
   
3. It’s hard to focus on things you’re bad at – and stay motivated and energised when working on them.

So if you have a team member with a persistent weakness – what can you do?

1. Focus on their strengths. As Curt Coffman, the US author of First Break All The Rules says “People don’t change that much. Instead of trying to put in what God left out, try drawing out what God put in!” With that in mind, ask yourself if you really need to fix your team members. Will you get more out of them by finding what they’re really good at and getting them to spend more time doing that, and raise their skill to an even higher level?
   
   
2. Find workarounds. Focusing on someone’s strengths doesn’t mean you should ignore their weaknesses – they still have to take responsibility for ensuring that their weaknesses don’t have a negative impact. You need to find a workaround. Perhaps you can set up a system that ensures they take action, or use phone prompts or computer software? Can they work with someone who excels in the skills they lack? Can you change their responsibilities so they don’t have to do much of the thing they’re not very good at? We’ve seen several cases where poor performers have been transformed to excellent performers, when they move to a different role that makes different demands on them.
   
   
3. Develop their strengths. Development can happen in your team without having to twist people’s arms. Doing the development that they enjoy, for example getting them to meet and learn from someone who is an expert in their area of interest is usually really quick to implement, has a rapid impact – and doesn’t need you to drive it.

Take Away
Don’t try to fix people. Instead look at the range of strengths within your team and work out how people can use them more every day.