Alternate: Everyone knows who isn’t pulling his or her weight in your organization

I have survived a number of mergers and acquisitions, each with their subsequent initiatives to “right size” the new organization and “upgrade” the talent by choosing the “best” from both companies (and getting rid of some others).   The ensuing layoffs are brutal and arbitrary no matter how fair companies try to be. The bottom line is, once it is decided that people have to go to meet the synergy target managers at all levels try to game the system to keep their team. They try to shape the hiring criteria in a way that benefits their legacy organizations, and challenge job descriptions claiming the jobs from the other organization weren’t comparable. They will do anything to save their folks .

Except, that is, the folks that they know they should have helped improve or managed out of the organization years ago. The corporate restructuring is a “hall pass” for the manager who has been avoiding the real conversation with these colleagues every quarterly check in, every mid-year review, every annual review, and every compensation discussion. Layoffs create an out: “The G-D D—N company made me do it”. “I fought for you.” In the 26 years that I worked in large companies I have seen managers at every level fail to manage their chronically underperforming or ill-equipped talent despite the impact it has on their entire organization. Oh, and here is the thing, everyone sees it.

I survived all of the sausage making of three different mergers/acquisitions and ended up as the General Manager of J&J’s Consumer Healthcare business Unit in Canada. My family and I left Manhattan and headed north. True to form I dealt with the anxiety I was feeling by embracing all that Toronto had to offer with a particular emphasis on the A&W franchises that are plentiful in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In fact, many of them are attached to gas stations, so you can kill two birds (and your arteries) with one stone.

There really is nothing better than a bacon cheeseburger, root beer and onion rings. In fact, you really can eat them as a fourth meal every day if you are willing to commit. The funny thing is, I would listen to a news radio station that ran diet commercials every evening as I was driving home. Every night, as I was trying to finish my food and get rid of the smell and crumbs so that I appeared ready to eat dinner (again), I would hear radio spots for Harvey Brooker’s weight loss for men. Harvey himself was the pitchman and he had great passion about his program and about why weight loss was different for guys. It took me 11 months and 30 pounds but I finally joined the program.

It was simple system comprising an easy to follow diet plan, a weekly group weigh-in, followed by session with education on nutrition. For extra motivation there were testimonials from those who had lost tons of weight and some 1 on 1 coaching with Harvey. When I showed up for our first coaching session, he asked me a number of questions about where, when, and how I was at my worst when it came to eating. I told him that one of the more difficult places for me to eat properly was when I was out with my male friends and he asked me why. I hemmed and hawed about not wanting to appear like I was too weak to do what I wanted in front of them, blah blah blah……

When I finished I was sure he was going to tell me that he understood how tough it was but that I would have to work a little harder if I wanted this program to work. Instead, Harvey immediately responded with a question: “You know they can see that you’re fat. Right?”

I was stunned, It really had never occurred to me such a clear and concise way. Of course I realized that my weight was visible, but I had never crystalized the thought that at each and every occasion when I was out with my friends they were seeing me, in the moment, fat, wolfing down wings with abandon.

Our organizations are the same way. They are living with the stuff we aren’t willing to deal with. The difference is, they are not living with it on an occasional night out. They live with it, all day, every day. As leaders, our job is to set the most positive and productive conditions for our organizations. Here the action standard is often clearly set out in a company’s competencies, values, and mission. Individuals not only have goals and objectives, but often clearly stated ways of operating that are designed to help an organization approach high performance.

More than anything else, I believe we have to be relentless in coaching, leading, recognizing and managing your talent. When we fail to act, you punish all of the people who are focused, hard working and productive. In my case I actually picture a couple of specific people, Maria Rendziak, and Tom Peter who were part of my team at Bausch & Lomb.

I have been lucky enough to work with many people who are both great at their jobs and hard working so there are other “Marias” or “Toms” but I think of these two. All you need to know is that they exceeded my expectations again and again and again in a private equity, turnaround environment. I force myself to imagine that they are sitting around the small meeting table in my office and I am telling them the following: “I want to thank you both for your incredible work on PROJECT X. I know you both killed yourselves and the division thanks you. I know we could have saved you countless hours of work and heartache if we had eliminated all of Janey’s, or Jimmy’s or Sydney’s or Jugdesh’s crap but that would have required me sitting with them and having a whole long discussion. Since it was you or me, I chose me.”

If you don’t believe that everyone knows who is underperforming, try this:

• Put up an org chart in a conference room
• Give your leadership team 5 sticky notes each
• Bet them that when they deployed the sticky notes next to the names of colleagues they know shouldn’t be here, there will be a remarkable convergence
• Ask if they need to finish the exercise or if they “get it”
• Get used to being credited with creating “The Sticky Note Method” and having it embroidered on a golf shirt they give you when you get promoted.

Everybody knows.

Today, at The New England Consulting Group I work across different organizations and across multiple levels of seniority in those organizations. Our most successful clients often talk about the impact they want the engagement to have on their talent as well as their business. We embrace those opportunities. Since every partner at NECG led organizations before we got here, we understand how closely linked talent and outcome are.

I lost 40 lbs. with Brooker. I’ve gained 30 back.