Perry Maddox reflects on the high cost of underperformance and shares why early corrective action is more urgent than we might think.
Tell us about a time you failed.
Ever get that question in an interview? It’s definitely one of my favourites to ask when I’m on an interview panel.
Look, we all fail.
People will tell you that what matters is whether we learn from our failure and come out better leaders on the other side. That’s true. In the medium term.
What matter most is stopping the failure in the first place. Stop the bleeding now, then get on with the learning. The longer we wait as leaders, the worse it will get.
That’s why when I’m asked about a time I failed, I often share this story.
Failing to Correct Failure.
Several years ago, I led a team with an exceptional high performer in a senior role. She’d been with us for a long time, working in a technical role and very much at the top of her field. Other directors definitely envied me for having her in my team.
As a high performer, she’d built her team and function to an exceptional standard. Almost an impossibly high standard, because few folks out there possess her skill and ability.
You know where this is heading by now.
Eventually she moved on. Very much the right move for her, and she left us well with a good notice period and thorough handover process.
The problem was that I couldn’t find anyone near her ability to replace her. It was obvious from the outset that we’d struggle to attract her calibre in the market, but we pushed out the adverts, held the interviews and hoped someone would surprise us.
In the end, I settled on a candidate who, even then, I sensed might not be up to the job. I was so worried about losing a high performer that I feared a vacancy in the function. So I offered the role to this new candidate and hoped.
Months later it wasn’t working out, but I chalked it up to the impossibility of replacing the exceptional former staff member. The new guy was a friendly, warm and working his tail off, so I gave him a lot of time and support. I was about to transition out of my role too, so I doubled down on him with the hopes that I could make it work before I left.
Only when my successor let him go later that year did I fully own up to my mistake.
The High Cost of Waiting to Fix Underperformance.
Within a year, that team’s performance had plummeted.
Once the highest performing teams for years running, it all fell apart under the new candidate who wasn’t up to the job. Talk about a terrible legacy I left to my successor, who not only had to mop up my mess but also to rebuild this tricky technical function. It took her years.
Why?
Because I failed. I waited too long to fix what was clearly underperformance.
Not long after, I was in a session with our board chair. He drew the following curve on a whiteboard.
It was a though he was talking directly to me. I had missed so many chances – to extend the recruitment, to reach out to recruiters to find better candidates, to end his contract at the end of probation, to put him on a performance improvement plan, to hire in additional talent – but I closed my eyes and hoped it would work out.
It didn’t.
As a result, everyone suffered – the new candidate, my successor, the organisation, our work – because I waited too long.
There’s no wishing away underperformance. Waiting only makes things worse, and before long the cost may become astronomical.
Why are You Waiting?
I had no intention to do the harm I did, nor to be negligent.
There are a host of reasons we might delay action. Perhaps we’re being too optimistic. Maybe we’re putting off a hard conversation. Often we’re just so busy elsewhere that we give an issue time before we resolve it. Sometimes we simply don’t know how to fix a problem.
Just remember, every time we wait, we make it worse. Every time.
So the next time you identify underperformance in a staff member, in a team, in a strategy, or in yourself, don’t wait.
After all, there are far better ways to answer that interview question than my story about failing to correct failure.
8 Comments
Perry,
I resonate very well with this piece. Thanks for writing.
Glad to hear it, and very happy to share. I certainly learned a real lesson with this one, so hopefully it’ll help others avoid the same pain. Hope you’re most well Priyambada!
Very accurate description of the sunk cost bias at play, the problem is not knowing when to cut your (the organisation’s) losses – and how to be as human as possible about it. Thanks for sharing.
So very true. And the worst part was that I knew it was a sunk cost bias even at the time… amazing in retrospect how, despite looking right at it, I effectively just tried to wish the problem away. Like watching a slow motion disaster unfolding, and the deeper it went, the more I doubled down on wishful thinking. No wonder really that it’s stuck with me over a decade later!
Thanks for this Perry. Also I think by sitting and not reacting to underperformance – you’re not doing right by the individual as well. Jobs are like relationships – sometimes they’re a mismatch and it just doesn’t work out. Who wants to be in a relationship that just isn’t working? The longer its dragged out the more likely the individual’s confidence could be damaged as they believe their performance is okay when one day you turnaround and say actually its been bad for a long time. This way its much harder to turn the situation around as it gets very personal very quickly. The best thing to do is jump on the conversation and be as clear and as kind as possible. It will be better for everyone in the long run.
This is so true. There’s nothing worse than leaving someone in a role where they can’t succeed. The stress, pressure and potential to do harm is high in that situation, if they know they’re not up to the job. And if they don’t know, then one day it comes out of the blue as you say and it’s just as bad. I think it was this story for me when I first realised the harm we can do by not addressing someone’s inability to succeed straight away. And of course these hard conversations can and must be had in kind and sensitive ways, but there’s no denying the urgency.
Thank you for sharing. This is really important information.
So glad to hear it, especially from a leader like you 🙂