“When you evaluate his effectiveness, given his resources and his challenges, how does he stack up?” I asked.
Audrey was quick to reply. “No way. That’s the problem. We have a results based performance review system. He is obviously not getting the results we want, but there is always something, some circumstance that prevents him or his team from delivering the goal. And that something, that circumstance always seems to make sense.”
“You mean the excuse that gets him off the hook is the excuse that you believe.” -TF
Hmmm, I’m confused. Does this person ever offer a solution to the problems or suggestions for improvements? It seems to me there are several reasons negative performance occurs. There are issues with outside vendors out of control of the company; issues reside within another department outside the control of this individual; unrealistic expectations of performance; or failure to perform. What’s that saying about expecting different results without different actions? Isn’t the idea to improve the system? Did the system work prior to this individual or is he managing a new system?
On another note, I grew up around racehorses. Some racehorses are afraid to win. I am not certain if that is herd mentality or what, but they just may prefer to come in second. One choice is to drop them in category (race them against lesser horses). Another is to set up a practice race where the other horse is held, perhaps more than one race is needed. However, it is my opinion that sometimes the horse doesn’t prefer to race anymore. Having exercised both of those examples, we sold one of our horses as a showjumper instead. He was a very nice stallion in both temperament and breeding that was very fast, but just didn’t want to win anymore in racing. My point being, were any goals lowered to see if the team could achieve for a taste of success? Maybe at this point, they feel like they cannot under any circumstance.