Leaders deal with challenging people.

Leaders know that their organization's future is tied to its people.  They are not only voracious about attracting and retaining fantastic people, they have a plan for dealing with challenging people.  ~Bill Hybels, 2011 Global Leadership Summit

This week I’m continuing with Bill Hybel’s presentation from the Global Leadership Summit on August 11, 2011.  Another of the Five Critical Questions leaders must ask was question two: “What is your plan for dealing with challenging people”?

Bill stressed the importance of the leadership team having a collective point of view as to how they would deal with challenging people, and he was very specific.  I think to the surprise of many in the audience.

Bill said that challenging people typically fall into three different categories.

Fantastic Fred.  These are the people who may be quite competent at their job, skill or task, maybe even fantastic.  The challenge is their attitude.  They have a bad attitude and they are spreading that bad attitude to others in the organization.  So, how much time do they give the Fantastic Freds at Willow Creek to get things turned around?  30 days.  They start the conversation immediately, and then they need to see change in 30 days, and if not, Fantastic Fred is asked to find an organization that might be a better fit.

Underperformers.  In some regards this is the easiest category because the underperformers are typically obvious, although not always to the underperformer.  These folks are given a clear explanation of how they are underperforming and what acceptable performance would look like.  Then they have 3 months (no more) to show that they can meet the expectations of their position.

Those lacking talent elasticity.  This is the most difficult of the three categories because these challenging people are good and hard-working; they may have been with the organization for many years.  Unfortunately, the growth of the organization now requires a greater capacity than what they appear to have; in other words, they don’t have the talent elasticity to grow with the organization.  This group is given the longest amount of time to either find a different place within the organization or bring their skills and performance up to the level the organization now requires.  They are given 6-12 months.

Why should you have a specific plan to deal with challenging people?  If you don’t, you’ll discourage your best performers and run the risk of losing them.  One commonality among the three categories of challenging people is they aren’t really happy people.  Maintaining status quo isn’t going to change that.