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It Take Two to Tango: 

Leadership's responsibility in setting individuals up for success

Employee success relies on hiring the right folks and also supporting them well. Getting both of those things right should involve attention and care. Rarely does a new hire start on day one and blow all expectations out of the water. Employees need time to learn the systems and procedures of an organization before tangible outcomes can be measured. Leaders need to ensure they are doing their role in setting the new hire up for success. 

1. Setting Clear Expectations 

2. Holding People Accountable

3. Providing Reasonable Support 

When any of those 3 are missing, it can cause leadership to feel doubtful in their decisions -- "am I the problem, or is the person not a good fit?" When you are confident in what outcomes you need, feel confident in how you are communicating that, and are providing reasonable directions for how to be successful, whether a termination is necessary becomes clear. 

Next I'll go into each of these in-depth to explain how leaders can ensure they are doing their part in supporting their employee's success. 

1. Setting clear expectations 

Reflection is crucial. Setting clear expectations can be hard, because it causes us to pause and get clear with ourselves on what we want and need. Often we know we need *something* but are unsure what that something is.

Focus on results, not effort.  When there is vagueness in what someone is supposed to accomplish, we can often default to effort as the measurement of success. This isn't a helpful measure though. While effort is necessary, showing great effort won't replace gaining new clients or donations. The effort has to be aimed at something. Clear expectations are grounded in the outcome or impact you expect to have. 

“Trying hard” is admirable, but doesn’t always lead to the needed results. I once had a friend who was unfamiliar with excel. She had been assigned a report to submit via excel that she was focusing on very intently. After working on it for over an hour, I asked her how it was going. She explained to me that she had accidentally filled all the information in the sheet starting at row 101 instead of row 1. She was now correcting that by drawing each row of data, one at a time, from farther in the workbook to the top of the sheet. For those who are also unfamiliar with excel, there are many more efficient ways to overcome this error. You can select multiple rows at once, delete the blank rows, cut and paste the data, etc. While her effort was genuine, it wasn't the greatest use of time. Focusing on effort can reward people for laborious efforts, when there might be a better, faster way to go about things to garner the necessary end result. 

What impactful expectations look like: clear, measurable deliverables or outcomes. 

1. Effort focused expectation might sound like, "Call 25 donors a month" 

2. Outcome focused expectation might sound like, "Gain 5 new donors at $50 or more each month" 

When we focus on effort, it's harder to pinpoint the disconnect between what we want to happen and a poor performer. "They did set up and follow through with the meetings." But the organization doesn't just need workers to check boxes off of a task list. The modern workforce requires employees to be owners of the outcomes and impact they make. 

2. Holding people accountable

Once expectations are set, accountability gives teeth to the expectations. Otherwise, the expectations just become words on a page. People can shudder away from accountability. It often has a connotation of "being in trouble". I like to liken it to the exchange when a friend tells you that you have spinach stuck in your teeth. No one loves when that happens and they have to hear that. But not being told about the spinach doesn't make it disappear. If the friend stays quiet then you are left to go about your day with out the knowledge to do anything about it. Accountability is about letting people know where they stand so they can adjust accordingly. 

Holding people accountable presumes you have expectations set. Without clear expectations you don't have anything to hold people accountable to. So, the above point about setting clear expectations is a prerequisite to this step going well. 

Managers should always be giving feedback, directing their employees on how their efforts are or are not making a difference to the organization, team, and role. Feedback reinforces the behaviors and actions you want to see and redirects unwanted or unhelpful actions towards more fruitful ends. 

There are many different tools to ground feedback. I prefer the method of SBI: Situation, Behavior, Impact

• Situation - In the SBI model, you begin by describing the context in which the action occurred. Rather than just saying, sometimes you do XYZ, feedback is much more powerful if it's linked to a specific incident. Take notes in advance if it’s hard to recall specific examples in the moment. 

  • • Example: In our meeting on Tuesday, in our last conference call, in the afternoon late last week back in the team break room, etc. You are helping the individual call to mind a specific instance.  

• Behavior - Next you describe the specific observable behaviors that occurred. Example: when you... crossed your arm, rolled your eyes, offered a discount to the client, etc. 

• Impact - this is where you draw the connection between the action that was observed and the impact that action has. From here you can also describe the desired actions moving forward. 

If you are not a naturally blunt person, calling out evidence this directly may feel unnatural. But you are helping the employee understand what about their specific actions led to the impact. Otherwise, when feedback stays vague, it can come off as "you're doing it wrong" with no clear direction of why, or how to change. For example, saying, "At the end of the day on Friday, I overheard you talking to prospective client in our conference room. I noticed that you were speaking very fast, and started several different sentences and would then cut yourself off. The impact of this is that a client can interpret that as nerves on your end, which can then lead them to question whether or not this is a good investment for them. Whether or not you are feeling confident, the behaviors you display can inspire confidence in our clients in our services. 

But what if feedback doesn't work?: Using this model doesn't *guarantee* that you will see an immediate (nor eventual) improvement in performance. But this is a necessary component toward improvement. If met with defensiveness, focus forward. "What are you going to do next time to ensure XYZ?"

3. Providing *reasonable* support 

The term reasonable is key here, but what even is reasonable? Reasonable support assumes someone already has the core competencies to do the job, they just need to be given guidance and direction for how to do it in this context. Reasonable is also highly contextual to the role and tenure of the role. It's appropriate to help a toddler tie their shoes, but you expect your 5th grader to handle it themselves. The support you provide an associate 3 months into their role will look different than the support you provide an executive at 3 months in their role. The key is to provide contextualized support at the right level. 

Feeding people to the wolves: It can be hard to identify ALL the things that someone might not know how to do. Often companies default to a sink or swim mentality. This can lead to resentful employees, and the loss of superstar workers who want a supportive work culture. Not providing enough support leaves people uncertain about where they stand and feeling unsuccessful. This is all too common. Less than 20% of employees report feeling like their well being matters to their boss or work.  

Too much of a good thing: You never want to set people up to fail, but you also don't want to coddel people via "over support". Sometimes managers can disguise their own anxiety about the perceived incompetence of the employee by being EXTRA helpful and supportive. This can look like a manager never letting the direct report take on anything risky, not giving them a full workload, offering to review EVERYTHING (read: because you're nervous they will mess it up). This "over support" is often about the manager fear of failure than anything else. But there is a cost to it: It doesn't allow the employee to truly show you what they are capable of. When the employee does have the opportunity to show you their capabilities, it will either 

1. 1. 1. reinforce your fears that they aren't a great fit in the role

      2. negate your fears by showing you they CAN do the job, or 

      3. expose a specific gap or area for support. 

In the first scenario, you move towards either a performance improvement plan or you move to termination. In the second scenario, you must confront your own anxieties and need for control by giving more opportunities to your employee. The third scenario is trickier. Below I'll borrow from Elena Eguilar's coaching framework in how to think about the what's happening before jumping to action and solutions. Within this framework, there is an understanding that skill, will, knowledge, capacity and emotional intelligence are necessary for someone to be successful in their role. When someone isn't successful in their role, you must first identify what kind of gap is present. 

• Skill - At times you need someone to already know how to do something. In fact, that might be why you hired them. If you hired a CFO to your firm that didn't know how to use excel, nor the basics of the budgeting, that would be a skill gap too great to overcome. Every role stretches individuals to grow and develop new skills. It's important that you are clear on what skills you can and cannot train and develop someone on. 

• Will - sometimes people don't want to do something. In the context of work, you might emphasize the importance of a role or component to inspire motivation. 

• Knowledge - A knowledge gap is about something they don't know. The employee might not even be aware of what it is they don't know. If you have an employee in violation of the dress code, do they know what the dress code policy is and what that looks like? Leaders need to ensure that they are providing the information necessary for people to make smart decision in their role. 

• Capacity - sometimes people are overwhelmed with what is on their plate. It's good to assess, is this a temporary decline in capacity due to multiple events and projects overlapping? Or are they overwhelmed even in the slow season and you need them to be able to take on more than they already are? Capacities can change. Also, individual leaders should be mindful to create reasonable workload expectations in the context of a typical capacity. 

• Emotional Intelligence - maybe someone can do the technical aspects of the job but they are tearing down team culture. Or it might be that they are hard to work with. Potentially there could be a gap in their ability to identify and manage the emotional and human side of business. 

Depending on the role, the nature of the gap, and the severity of the gap will determine whether or not training will be successful in overcoming the gap. Regardless, this act of reflection will serve leaders in identifying effective and directive feedback and support. 

When leaders commit to clear expectations, honest feedback, and contextual support, they not only set up their team for success — they create the clarity needed to make confident personnel decisions. If you're feeling unsure about a team member’s performance, start by asking: Have I truly done my part as a leader?