You’ve heard them. You may have used them. Phrases like:
Jimmy can’t prospect.
Janey can’t close well.
Timmy doesn’t align value to role.
Sally can’t get to the Economic Buyer.
Billy can’t build and test Champions.
You know the formula:
(name) (can’t/won’t/doesn’t) (activity desired)
These are all labels that we stick onto our peeps. Here is why you MUST change your approach: After a while, in your mind, people ‘become’ that label. It is also the lazy-leader’s way and takes no skill. Literally no skill. Sorry if that felt like I poked you in the eye. (I’m not really but…)
Our people can feel these labels being stuck on them. It hurts their morale. It crushes their confidence. It kills their production.
Here’s a thought: Instead of using these LABELS to put them into categories, what if, instead, we used LENSES to better see them. An opportunity to assess instead of condemn.
If we take the LENSES mindset, I think there are 5 steps that can transform how you engage with the underperforming parts of your peeps:
Awareness: The first step is to know what the skills and competencies for the role are. Many times we are holding up a ruler to someone that is not relevant or as relevant as we make it. What REALLY matters for success in this role? It is usually less things than we think.
Assessment: Instead of having an opinion, we need to dig in and actually assess the situation. Listen to calls, go out on appointments, review notes, administer an assessment. A thousand ideas per role, per attribute. But it needs to be done. As objectively as possible as subjective actions tend to feed our biases.
Action: Once we have the actual gap mapped, we need to build an action plan that is going to develop that skill or competency. It should have a lifecycle. It should have check points. It should follow a framework (I personally always use the SMART model. Google it or call me.) The secret sauce on this piece is for them to own this action plan. It is their development. Build the plan with them and be part of the process but they need to own it.
Adoption: Moving from being incompetent to basic skills to mastery to a habit takes time. It takes commitment. It takes pushing through the stumbles. The plan you build should be in place for a period of time LONGER than required to learn the skill. If we don’t get it to a habit, it will likely snap all the way back (scar tissue speaking here…).
Accountability: As humans, we suck at personal accountability. Think New Year’s Resolutions. We don’t have the staying power. It’s just true for most of us. Help the person build an accountability ecosystem. When we are accountable, we increase our odds of success radically. (96% of decamillionaires have accountability partners) Help them build 2 – 4 ways to get frequent accountability. You, a buddy, a coach, a mentor, etc. Emails, a quick call, a recurring weekly reminder. It isn’t hard.
At the bottom of many skills gaps lies a layer of fear and potential disbelief. Often times execution errors are ties to something deeper.
You can’t see past a label. They become the label. With a lens mindset, we can be diagnostic and developmental. Sure, it’s harder but that is simply the price of progress and growth.
Being good is easy. Being great is hard.
When we label people, we are demonstrating a Closed Mindset. When we use lenses, we are demonstrating a Growth Mindset. A great read on this topic is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. I highly recommend it.
Imagine how it will feel when you move from condemning team members and, instead, build an environment of development on a 1:1 basis. How would it feel to have the production of each of your team members improve by 10 – 20% because of this process? I bet it’s gonna feeling friggin’ awesome.
Love to chat with you to see if this approach makes sense for you and your team and how we could activate this together.
#BeBrave
