From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I help supervise a young man at my company. He has a grating voice, a false sense of his own skill level, often fishes for complements on average work and tries to tell others how they should be doing their jobs. He is truly the most annoying person I’ve ever encountered. That being said, he works a shift no one else wants to work and does an o.k. job with a lot of direction from co-workers.

Response:

A false sense of his own skill level is not such a bad thing. Between you and me, let’s call it self-confidence, perhaps over-confidence. Some managers may try to adjust a person’s over-confidence by calling them out, chopping them off at the knees or otherwise belittling them. Waste of time. In fact, counterproductive.

Marcus Buckingham, in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know describes a superb managerial response. He assumes that, in some cases, over-confidence may actually be helpful in the face of a true challenge. So, rather than try to adjust this young man’s confidence level, spend time asking him to articulate the difficulties of doing a high quality job in his role with the company.

Most people underestimate the real difficulties, which contributes to over-confidence and also contributes to under-performance. Your job, as a Manager is to help the person explore those difficulties.

I once spent three successive days with a CNC operator, whose job was to cut sheet metal using a machine from the plasma cutting table manufacturers. Each day, for a half an hour, he would explain things to me. We started with his prescribed duties, cutting metal and meeting quota for the day. That was a quick discussion.

The rest of the time, we talked about his discretionary duties. It was up to his discretion how he organized his materials in front of the machine. It was his discretion to listen for funny noises coming from the machine. It was his discretion to collect and dispose of scrap coming out of the back of the machine.

Funny, it was those discretionary things that made the difference between a good operator and a great operator. What do you think? After three days, totaling ninety minutes of conversation, explaining things to me, do you think he was a better operator? -TF

In response to yesterday’s Ask Tom, if a new team member is still struggling after five months, it’s time for graduation. Excellent comments were posted by Michelle Malay Carter, Varun Malhotra and Chris Young. Read the comments here.

My turn.

You have two things working against. Both need to be fixed, though it’s too late for this person.

First, you have difficulty making the termination decision because the performance standards for the role have not been set. Everyone knows this person is underperforming, but without a standard, we are all left with only our opinions. Tough to terminate someone based on an opinion without a standard.

So, take this opportunity to create a standard. Heck, create a certification process. Get your team involved to create a performance protocol. All new hires should be considered to be on probation until they meet the standard. Set a time limit and move on.

Second, you don’t have anyone waiting in the wings. If you had too many people vying for that chair, the decision would be much easier to make. For this position, you need to be trading up. -TF

Greetings from Toronto.
From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I was recently promoted to supervisor. It’s been a challenge, but I definitely think I can grow into the role and learn to handle it successfully.

Before I was promoted, a new technician was hired. It has been almost 5 months since, yet he is still in training. That’s 5 times longer than any other new hire we’ve had. Other technicians who are working with and “shadowing” him in training continue to report that they do not trust his ability to proficiently handle his duties. With my own firsthand observation, I feel the same way. Had I been promoted earlier, I would have strongly objected to his hiring.

It’s always the same story: the job required a stronger technical background than he thought so it’ll take him longer, and he will continue to do his best to learn the ropes and gain the trust of the other employees. He cannot provide a timeframe when he thinks he would be ready.

If it were strictly up to me, I’d get rid of him. Keeping him diverts technicians and resources from other projects, costs the company his hourly wage, and most likely lowers our customer satisfaction ratings as many of our callers quickly pick up on the fact that he is “new” and unsure of himself. My manager, however, would prefer not to take that route, for fear of the consequences that can follow termination. Yet, I feel like he’s pressuring me when he says things like “He STILL isn’t ready yet? He’s been here for 5 months! Why is it taking so long?”

What should I do? Would I be justified in setting a deadline by which he must become proficient? When should I say “enough is enough?”

Response:

Actually, I am curious about how others see this. Please add a comment below. -TF