Archive for Hiring and Firing
Knowing the difference between players and pretenders
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve ever led people, you’ve come across followers who would rather act the part than do their part. Those people are pretenders, and while they can sometimes masquerade as players, there are ways to tell the two apart. It’s important to find all the pretenders within an organization, because otherwise, they will steal momentum and damage relationships.
Here is my guiding principle: Pretenders look the part, talk the part, and claim the part, but fall short of fulfilling the part.
Here are some other specific differences:
1. Players have a servant’s mindset; pretenders have a selfish mindset.
Players do things for the benefit of others and the organization, while pretenders think only of benefitting themselves. A pretender is narrowly focused only on outcomes that are in his or her best interest.
2. Players are mission-conscious; pretenders are position-conscious.
Players will give up a position to achieve a mission. Pretenders will give up a mission to achieve a position. For players, the progress of the mission is much more important than their own place within it. But a pretender will value his or her position more highly than just about anything else.
3. Players can deliver the goods; pretenders only promise the goods.
A player is a team member who can be counted on to finish a task every time. The pretender will claim the ability to do so; but in the end, he or she does not consistently execute.
4. Players are job-happy: they love what they do and do it well. Pretenders are job-hunters: they can’t do what they do where they are but think they could do it better somewhere else.
For a player, the work is fulfilling and meaningful, and he or she is devoted to doing it well. The pretender is so focused on appearing competent that he or she cannot always BE competent. And again because of the focus on appearance, the pretender won’t admit fault when mistakes are made. Thus, he or she believes that problems are a part of the workplace, not him- or herself.
5. Players love to see others succeed; pretenders are only interested in their own success.
Rabbi Harold Kushner had a player’s mindset when he said, “The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
I think we all start out as competitors, but the goal is to grow past that. In my adult life, I have evolved from competitor, to personal achiever, to team player, and on to team builder. A player is happy when another member of the team succeeds because it benefits all. The pretender sees success as a win-lose proposition, and resents it when another person “wins.”
6. Players value integrity; pretenders value image.
In navigation, the rule is that what’s under the surface should be heavier than what’s above the surface. Otherwise, ship will capsize in a storm. Integrity is like this; what’s under the surface had better be greater than that which is in plain sight. A player can be counted on to do the right thing, even if nobody is looking. Pretenders may only do the right thing when others are looking, and whatever is expedient when others are not.
7. Players make the hard choices; pretenders make the easy choices.
We all have the power of choice, but once used, our choice has power over us. What is a hard choice? With a hard choice, the price is paid on the front end; the payoff only comes later. Few people gather to affirm the hard choice, and it almost always includes risk. And the hard choice usually places others and the organization above self. Peter Drucker once said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” Players aren’t afraid to make those decisions.
8. Players finish well; pretenders fade out.
Some people start as players, but at some point they turn into pretenders. Why? I believe it’s because they overestimate the event and underestimate the process. They make the choice to begin, but they get tired of the work it takes to continue. Or they begin and proceed until they are confronted with the need to change. Unwilling to do that, they begin pretending in order to get by. A player takes all tasks to completion.
Do you have a better idea of who the players and pretenders are within your team or organization? Remember that players will always ADD to the team’s efforts. But pretenders, at least in the long run, will COST the team. Knowing the difference between the two means that you’ll count on the right person to get the job done.
For leaders: balancing care with candor
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Image courtesy of photobucket
Every person makes mistakes at some time in the workplace. Everyone needs someone to come alongside them to help them improve. If you’re a leader, it is your responsibility and your privilege to be the person who helps them get better. That often begins with a candid conversation. But before you have it, it helps to ask yourself what the nature of the problem might be.
My friend Sam Chand says that when he is having difficulty with a person he asks himself one simple question, “Is this person a can’t or a won’t? Can’t is about abilities. We can help these kinds of people in most cases—not in all cases, but in most. But won’t is about attitude. If the issue is attitude, the time to let that person know there is a problem is now, because here is the deal: we hire people for what they know and fire them for who they are.”
I believe that people can improve their attitudes and their abilities. And because I do, I talk to them about where they’re coming up short. If you’re a leader and you want to help people, you need to be willing to have those tough conversations. So how does a leader handle being relational while still trying to move people forward? By balancing care and candor.
Care without candor creates dysfunctional relationships.
Candor without care creates distant relationships.
But care balanced with candor creates developing relationships.
Here is how care and candor work together in leadership:
Caring Values The Person While Candor Values The Person’s Potential
To lead successfully, it is important for you to value people. That is foundational to solid relationships. Caring for others demonstrates that you value them. However, if you want to help them get better, you have to be honest about where they need to improve. That shows that you value the person’s potential, and requires candor.
If you’re candid with someone but with their benefit in mind, it doesn’t have to be harmful. It can be similar to the work of a surgeon. It may hurt, but it shouldn’t harm. As a leader, you must be willing and able to do that. If not, you won’t be able to help your people grow and change.
Caring Establishes The Relationship While Candor Expands The Relationship
The things that usually help to establish a relationship are common ground and care. But those things usually aren’t enough to make a relationship grow. To expand a relationship, candor and open communication are required.
Most leaders I talk to have a difficult conversation that they know they need to have but are avoiding. Usually they are reluctant for one of two reasons: either they don’t like confrontation, or they fear that they will hurt the person they need to talk to. But if a leader can balance care and candor, and the follower responds with grace and willingness to grow, it will actually deepen and strengthen the relationship.
Caring Defines The Relationship While Candor Directs The Relationship
Solid relationships are defined by how people care about one another. But just because people care about one another doesn’t mean that they are going anywhere together. Getting the team moving together to accomplish a goal is the responsibility of the leader, and that often requires candor. My friend, Colin Sewell, owner of several auto dealerships, said to me, “Leaders have to make the best decisions for the largest group of people. Therefore, leaders give up the right to cater to an individual if it hurts the team or the organization.” If you want to lead people well, you need to be willing to direct them candidly.
Caring Should Never Suppress Candor While Candor Should Never Displace Caring
The bottom line, which has already become very clear, is that good leaders must embrace both care and candor. You can’t ignore either. So to help you strive to keep the balance between the two, I’ve created a caring candor checklist for working with people. Before having a candid conversation, make sure that you can answer yes to the following questions:
- Have I invested in the relationship enough to be candid with them?
- Do I truly value them as people?
- Am I sure this is their issue and not mine?
- Am I sure I’m not speaking up because I feel threatened?
- Is the issue more important than the relationship?
- Does this conversation clearly serve their interests and not just mine?
- Am I willing to invest time and energy to help them change?
- Am I willing to show them how to do something, not just say what’s wrong?
- Am I willing and able to set clear, specific expectations?
If you can answer yes to all of these questions, then your motives are probably right and you have a good chance of being able to communicate effectively.
As a young leader, I found it very difficult to have candid conversations with people. I often postponed those difficult talks, hoping that an issue would go away. Seldom did that happen. Maybe you relate to that. If so, you’ll be glad to hear that you’re normal. However, you need to know that candid conversations are a leader’s responsibility and must be done—but in the right way with the right attitude. When an employee is hired to get a certain job done and doesn’t, that hurts the team and the organization. And it’s then time for the leader to take action. That can be very hard; but in the long term, it’s best not only for the organization, but also for the person who needs to hear what’s not going right. If your goal is to help the individual, improve the team, and fulfill the vision of the organization, then this is the path you should follow as a leader.
Adapted from my upcoming book, The Five Levels of Leadership (October 2011)
Is there a right way to lay someone off?
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At the Maximum Impact Simulcast on May 8, I fielded a very timely question.
During lunch, a young man asked,
“How does a good leader handle layoffs? Especially when they need to lay off a good and valued employee?”
Here’s what I believe:
First, I don’t think a leader should ask others to make sacrifices until he’s made some himself. So I’d examine other company expenses to see what could be sacrificed instead. So many executives, when faced with the need to cut costs, will sacrifice employees ahead of their own corporate perks. Instead of looking at the big picture, they see only their OWN picture.
But if an organization is only as strong as its weakest link, then leaders should do everything they can to avoid removing a STRONG link. A good employee is simply too valuable to let go without exhausting other options.
I do the same when hiring. I’ve always believed that if you find a good potential employee, you do whatever you can to get them on the team – even if it means creating a position or changing the budget. I once even gave up my own budgeted salary for a year in order to hire the leader I wanted to run one of my companies.
You may not be able to sacrifice your salary to keep an employee, but if they’re truly valuable, you certainly should be willing to give up the box seats at the baseball stadium, or use of the corporate jet, or your company-paid gym membership.
And after all the budget-busting, if you still need to lay good people off, then make it your goal to help them find a new position. Tell them you will be their #1 advocate. Offer to be a reference in their job hunt. Network on their behalf. Write the recommendation letter and/or make the phone call to the potential employer. Do whatever you can to ease their transition.
Finally, ask if you can remain friends even if they can no longer be on your staff. Who knows what the future may bring? Besides, as a leader, your goal should be to add value to the people you lead. When good employees leave and take a new position, it might offer them better opportunities than what you could have provided.
Image Credit: Microsoft Clip Art
