The Profit Builder Unscripted

Why Employees Fail—and How to Fix It

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 57

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An employee not meeting expectations despite repeated conversations? In this episode I unpack the four main causes of job underperformance.

I share a real story from one of my clients about a long-time employee who’s skilled and capable, but suddenly causing friction with the team.

Whether you’re promoting someone into leadership or trying to get a struggling employee back on track, this episode offers practical insights you can put into action immediately.

Gain a fresh perspective on how to set your team up for success, help them be more accountable, and stop being stuck in the middle of performance issues.

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If you're struggling with employee performance issues and you're wondering whether or not that person can really make it in the job or if it's time to let them go, then make sure to listen to this episode because what I'm going to share with you are some key distinctions about why does somebody actually fail in a job. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter and welcome to the Profit Builder Unscripted.

This week as I started my conversation with my client Eric, he started telling me about this employee who works for him, who's, this guy's worked for him for a really long time. And he said, you know, I, this guy is really good at what he does and he's very smart and he's very skilled. And I really respect and appreciate how good he is at what he does, but he is really pushing back on us right now and he's not following through and he's not doing what he says he's gonna do. people don't wanna, like the people who work for him don't wanna go talk to him. They're going around him, coming and talking to me. And I said, have you told him, like have you sat down and had a conversation with him? And he said, yeah, like I've had numerous conversations with him telling him you need to do this and you need to do that and you need to.

You know, you need to make sure to give people answers when they come and talk to you, or I've told him that people don't want to come to him, that they're coming to me, that's a problem, he needs to do something different. And I said, well, let's talk about the fundamental reasons why somebody fails in a job. And there's four primary reasons why somebody doesn't do their job or is unsuccessful at their job. I said, first of all, it is sometimes it's just a lack of skill or competence, right? They do not have the skill. They don't have the ability. They don't have the training. They just lack competence in that particular function or even maybe in the entire job, right? Sometimes we put people in positions because we really like them, but then they're really not. They don't have the skills that they need to do the job. said, secondly is the second reason is sometimes capacity.

So where somebody just has so much that they have to do and there's so many things demanded on them that they just don't have the time to get to it. Now what's interesting is what I've found over the years is that oftentimes people who lack capacity are also people who lack competence. In other words, they're really kind of flailing and struggling to get the job done and they're not efficient at how they do it because they're not skilled at what they're doing.

But not always. Sometimes we put people in positions and we give them way too much to do and they just don't have the capacity to do everything we've asked them. The third reason is lack of desire. Like you have somebody who just completely does not care and they just don't, they're like, I don't care. I'm gonna do it my way. And now we've all seen people in it like that, right?

And I asked, said, this guy's worked for you for a really long time. Is that the issue, right? Is it skill? Is it capacity? Is it desire? Or I said, let me ask you this, is it the fourth reason, and the fourth reason somebody is not successful in their job is there's a lack of leadership on your part as an owner and as a manager have you clearly defined the criteria for success for him? And have you gotten agreement about that criteria? And I said, let's talk about each one of them. said, so when you think about this guy, I said, first of all, does he have the skillset? And he said, well, he's really smart. He's really good. Like we promoted him into the level, like to be the head of the shop and to be the shop foreman, cause he's so good and he's so skilled.

And so yes, like he is so good at what he does. And I said, ⁓ great. You made him a shop foreman. said, has he ever managed people before? And they were like, yeah, like, well, he's had to like oversee what other people do. And I said, so is them. But you just described that you have people who don't want to talk to him. And he's like, yeah, people don't want to talk to him. I'm like, well, why? What's what's going on with that? And he said, Well, he's super irritant. He gets really frustrated with people. He makes them feel really stupid because they don't like, he thinks that they should know. And I said, yeah, I've seen that. Like where you hire somebody, you promote somebody into a new position as a leader and they're really good at, they're a really good technician, right? And then you make them a leader and now you don't understand why they're not good leaders. said, have you trained them?

Does he have the competence? Does he have the skill to be a manager and a leader? And they were like, well, you we tell them what to do. And I said, it could be that what you need to do is put them through some training, put them through some leadership training that will really help him understand how to be a good leader, how to understand that not everybody is going to do it the way he does it. And that really what's critical in his role is that part of his role is developing people. That if everyone was as good as he was as a technician, they'd all be doing his job. But they're not. And the reason they're not is they don't possess that same skill and competence that he does. that part of his new role right now is that his role is to be that person to help develop the rest of the people, to be the person that they answer to.

And what was great is he was like the light bulb started going off. I said, well, let's talk about that fourth reason for a second. The have you defined the criteria for success for this foreman, this shop foreman and let them know what it means to be in this position. Do you have a position agreement with them that defines what the criteria for success is? And I said, and if he's a manager, one of those things critically should be, part of your success of being successful and being accomplished in this job is that you help other people reach their goals and be successful in their job. That the people who work for you are successful. And they were like, yeah, like we've kind of done it. And I was like, so tell me what kind of done it means. And they said, well, you know, we've sat down and we've talked about it. I said, so is it in writing? No. So you haven't had them sign it then either? No.

So you don't have an agreement. If it's not in writing and he hasn't agreed to it and he hasn't signed it, then it's not an agreement that you and he have. And you haven't provided the clarity that he needs to understand his role changed. It's just not that he has more responsibility because he has more skill and experience. And that part of your job as a leader, part of our jobs as leaders is that if we want to help people be really successful in their jobs, we need to define the criteria for what being successful means. And that means having it in writing and that we literally get verbal agreement as well as a written agreement, kind of like a contract with a client, right? It's really in a lot of ways, no different. And that just like contracts with clients, right? You know, as a contractor that the ones that are the most successful, are the ones that are really clearly defined. What is the results that we're after, right? What am I promising to do? When am I gonna do it? What's it gonna cost, right? Like all of those things that are in contracts that you have with client, the specifications, the detail, the final result that you're gonna produce in your contracts with your clients. You know that the clearer that is the easier it is for both of you to be able to be successful in that relationship. The same thing is true with our employees. That the clearer we can be about what's the criteria for success, what are the results we're after, not the tasks that they're gonna do, but the results that the more successful that person can be. Now we're setting them up so that they can actually own the job. 

And so in the case of this shop foreman, I said, what are you looking for? Like, what are you, what's the results you want? Well, that he manages and maintains the schedule. I'm like, great. How often should he be updating that? Well, he should be updating it every week. Great. Are you meeting with him about that every week? Well, every day we talk to him about what he needs to get done. I'm like, well, you're still micromanaging him. Have you actually gotten it so that once a week he knows that he has to have the schedule board updated?

That says what's going to happen for the next week that he and everybody else in the shop can see. Well, no, we're still kind of doing that. I'm like, OK, he might need training in it, right? But you've got to give it to him to let him own it so that he can actually own that result as opposed to continue to be a helper to you. That's going to be the one thing that gets you out of the middle of the mix but also empowers him to actually own it as a leader.

That's really the thing that you're after in the first place, right? You promoted him to be in a leadership role. said, secondly, I said, so tell me about how he manages his crew. Like, does he have regular meetings with the shop? And again, he said, well, you know, we all sit down together and we talk about it. I go, so part of the training with him might be that you need to spend some time teaching him to be that leader.

So that he can really step into that role and have more clarity so that he has more confidence about what is his role, what's important about that. So the more you can define that into the position agreement and that it speaks to the results he's responsible for, and once you have agreement, now you have something that you can coach to. Because...

If you don't have agreement, if it's not written, somebody hasn't signed it. It's just like trying to manage a client who hasn't signed an agreement with you or getting them to write a check or make a payment to you. It's a little bit tough, right? So, and I don't mean this in a negative way or the really the intent behind it is our jobs as leaders is to really help our teams be able to be successful.

And the best way to help our employees and our teams be successful is to clearly define what's the criteria for success with them. And the other thing I explained to him, and this guy has been in this position for, I don't know, about four months. The final thing I said is, listen, you, Eric, really want to make sure that you understand this is a long game when you put somebody in a new position.

I shared with them my ⁓ experience and some of my podcasts have talked about this. I put somebody in a different position in my organization about a year and a half ago and it's been a journey. I promoted her to being in a more leadership role and Dorothy and I have had lots of great conversations over this time about what does that look like and how do you manage other people and how do you take responsibility for the big picture and what are those results you're accountable for versus all of the tasks. And it's been a learning for me to remember that and to continue to remember that my job as a leader is to, it's a constant process of coaching and aligning until the next level has been reached and then the next level. 

And I think it's so important for us as leaders that when we are developing people to remember that it's not a one and done thing. That not like we should micromanage them, right? But that when we have a clear criteria that we've defined as to what that position is and we have position agreements in place, then our job is to keep aligned with what are those results and are you on track with them and make sure that we have a system for managing those results with them, like the example of the weekly meetings. So I hope you find this helpful. Maybe you're hearing some nuggets in here, and maybe you're hearing something in here that can help you, and starting to shift some things about how you're leading people and how you think about it. And maybe consider for yourself, if you have somebody who is not being successful in a job, what of those four things is it?

Is it that they lack competence, they lack capacity, they lack desire, or do they lack leadership direction? they lack that clarity from you about what are the results they're after as opposed to just being a helper in focusing on tasks? If you want to learn more about this, if you want some other tools and resources that can help you really embody this learning, I have a course called the Build Your Dream Team course that is all about helping you develop those position agreements with people, understand how to define what are the important, I help you define what are those really critical deliverables for a position. There's actually over two dozen pre-written position agreements and they're specific to the construction industry that you get included in it. 

And included in it is also how do you get that buy-in in agreement with your employees? And then also, there's a couple sections that are just about, hey, how do you stay in front of it? How do you make sure that, all right, we've defined the criteria for success. Now, how do we make sure that we stay on track for those results? And I give you some great tools to be able to do that with your teams. So if you're interested, there's a link below to the Build Your Dream Team course. If you have questions, if you want to know more about it, there's also a link below to my calendar. Feel free to grab a time and we can chat about it. There's no obligation at all to do that. I'm happy to explore if that's the right fit for you. All right. If you like this content, please make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you have other people that you think would get value from it, please share this episode and thanks for being part of this community. I look forward to seeing you next time on the Profit Builder Unscripted.


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Vicki Suiter

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