The Introvert Leader

How to Turn Around a Low Performer

• Austin Hopkins

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You inherit a team. One person is dragging everyone down. Now what?

In this episode, I break down how to turn around a low-performing employee without killing your team’s culture or your own credibility. I’ll share a personal story of a turnaround attempt that didn’t work, the five biggest mistakes leaders make, how to uncover the real reason behind low performance, and what to do when it's already too late.


Timestamps

00:34 – Story: Why coaching, feedback, and accountability didn’t work and what I learned from failing to turn someone around.

03:04 – 5 Mistakes Leaders Make With Low Performers: From waiting too long to pushing too hard. Here are the common traps leaders fall into when trying to fix performance.

05:52 – How to Find the Real Problem: Is it a skill issue? Or a will issue? Learn how to diagnose the root cause before creating your plan. 

9:33 – The Turnaround Strategy: How to build a plan that balances high standards with human empathy and actually works.

15:41 – When It’s Too Late: Three warning signs that it's time to move on, even if you've tried everything.

17:49 – Challenge For Listeners: An action step to help you stop avoiding a tough conversation and start leading with clarity.



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SPEAKER_00:

You're sitting in a meeting and the senior leadership team drops a bomb. They tell you that the bottom 10% of performers of the company are going to be let go by the end of the quarter. Your stomach drops because you know someone on your team is in that group. You have 90 days to turn them around. What do you do? Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast. So I want to tell you a story. I actually had a situation like this once. I inherited a low performer. We'll call her Carol. Carol had a reputation for being really tough to work with, but somehow she managed to keep her job year after year. And despite constantly falling short of expectations, she never got fired. Within my first month of working with her, I knew she was going to be a challenge. Not only was she completely failing to meet her job expectations, but I was also hearing negative feedback from our clients. They didn't like the way she treated them, they didn't like her follow-up, stuff like that. I knew I needed to turn her performance around quick because she was actually having a really big impact on the rest of the team. I couldn't just ignore the problem. It was my problem to solve, even though the previous two managers did nothing about it. It was my problem. So I inherited it. I had to make something happen. So I started by observing her performance. I would literally would just sit next to her for hours during the day. I would be on my laptop, kind of just watching what she was doing. And I would give her on-the-spot coaching and we would role play things that she was struggling with. And every time she pushed back, she resisted change. She didn't seem like she was willing to grow. And guess what? Nothing changed. And I actually started to doubt my ability to help her a little bit. I would start to ask myself questions like, dude, am I a good leader? Do I even know what I'm doing? I haven't ran into a situation like this before. I'm feeling a little stuck. What's interesting is as I turned up the accountability, she somehow got even worse. She was showing up late to work. She was missing deadlines. She was getting even more negative client feedback. And eventually I had no choice but to put her on a performance improvement plan. I gave her the roadmap of what she needed to do. I offered tons of support. I checked in frequently, still no improvement. And then one day she had enough, I guess. And she blew up on one of her coworkers. She accused them of stealing something. They didn't steal it. We had proof. There were cameras. They did nothing wrong. And unfortunately, her blowup was so bad that I actually had to let her go. And I took that personally. I really felt like I had failed. But at the end of the day, I didn't. I learned that we can't change or help someone who doesn't want to be helped. You know, and I gotta say, that situation taught me a lot of lessons, and I made some mistakes. I wasn't perfect. And I want to help you avoid them. So as a leader, your team is only as good as your worst performer. Turning around a low performer is not something that's easy. Getting another human being to make a change takes a lot of care and a lot of intention. If you do it right, you get to see your team rise to the occasion, which is one of the coolest things ever. If you do it wrong, you can actually ruin the culture that you've built and the relationships. So I want to share with you the five mistakes to avoid when turning around a low performer. So the first one, starting too late. We wait too long. We hope they're gonna turn it around. We avoid the uncomfortable conversations. We just hope that people are adults and they're gonna figure it out and we kind of just put it off and hope it'll fix itself. And then one day we look around and it's too late. We've waited too long. We can't turn the ship around at this point. The second big mistake I see people making is babysitting. You manage adults, and your job isn't to babysit. Don't lower yourself to the role of babysitter. Each of us are responsible for our own careers. Again, you'll hear a theme here. We can't help people that don't want to be helped. That doesn't mean that we give up and that doesn't mean we don't try, but at the end of the day, it's on the individual to figure out do they want to rise to the occasion? The second big mistake I see people make is not empathizing with their employee situation. I want you to pause for a second and just put yourself in their shoes. How do you think it feels to be the low performer? Do you think they're proud of that? Do you think they like that? Also, like what's happening at home? Is there any chance their marriage is in shambles? Is their kid acting out? Are they having some health issues? Is this a temporary thing? Is this a permanent thing? Have they been a great performer in the past? And is this just a slump? I want you to empathize and just really realize that if you're just trying to lay down the law and get performance out of them and you forget about the human, you're failing as a leader because we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. And if we don't get curious about that, we're gonna piss off our team and we're also gonna potentially lose some good employees. Another common mistake, this they go right to the stick instead of the carrot. So if you are trying to use threats to get compliance or you're using fear or consequences, you've already failed. You're not acting as a leader, you're acting as a manager. As a leader, our job is not to use a stick. Our job is to use the carrot. Our job is to recognize, to encourage them to get out of their comfort zone, be the best version of themselves, encourage them to step up, to rise to the occasion. And I have really found that when leaders use a stick and they impose fear and they give threats and things like that, man, it just turns their employees off. And it actually does the opposite. It actually makes it much harder for that employee to turn around. The next mistake that I see too many leaders make is pushing too hard too fast. So as you can tell, I love plants, right? I've got some plants in the background. And I've learned that when I'm trying to train a plant and a vine to move in a specific direction, I have to be careful to bend it, but not to break it. Right. So if I yank on those vines really, really hard and aggressively try to move it in a different direction, it's gonna break. And that's the same thing with our employees. Our goal is to help our employees change, but at a pace that's actually reasonable. And remember, if they're changing some big thing about the way they do their work or how they show up every day, that's gonna take time. And you need to be patient with that. And you need to understand that it needs to happen at their pace, not at your pace. So once you've avoided these mistakes, your next job is to figure out what is really going on. You can't fix what you don't understand. So I want to transition to the next section and talk about determining the root cause of low performance. So I want you to imagine for a second that you are a doctor. Imagine you have somebody come in and they tell you they're not feeling well. They said, My shoulder's hurting, and you immediately say, Hey, let's operate on your shoulder. Well, that is insane and no one would come back to you. And the same thing applies to leadership. Your first step in turning around a low performer is to figure out why it happened in the first place. I have found in my career that all performance issues usually fall into one of two buckets. It's either a skill issue or a will issue. The root cause of their performance issues could be something deep, or it could be as simple as confusion. There was a 2015 Gallup poll that found nearly half of US employees didn't even know what was expected of them at work. So imagine that you're an employee, you don't know what's expected of you, so your performance starts to fail. That's not your fault, man. That's your leader's job. If they're not giving you clear expectations and letting you know what they expect of you, that's on the leader. That's not on you as the employee. So the first thing you got to do is you got to schedule a one-on-one. You got to tell them in advance what you want to talk about. You don't want to warn them two months in advance and say, hey, we're gonna have a chat in two months. You wanna give them a couple of days' heads up. You don't want them to overthink. Again, put yourself in their shoes. They get an email or a message from you that says, Hey, I want to talk about your performance, they're gonna freak out. They're gonna think they're gonna get fired. You don't want them to lose that psychological safety. So just let them know, hey man, I want to talk about your performance. I wanna kind of go over how things have been going recently. It's not, hey, we need to talk about this, you're gonna get fired. It's just, hey, I want to have a conversation. So you get them into the meeting. Here's how I would run it. The first thing I would do is I would ask them to do a self-review, do a little self-reflection, ask them to share how they think they've been performing recently. So you could ask questions like, how have things been going? What have you been struggling with? How would you rate your performance? Is this what you expected the quarter to look like? Things like that. Get them to answer questions to get them to kind of open up and talk about where they think they've been and where they think they're going and how things have been recently. So the next thing you gotta do is you gotta figure out if they're unclear about what they need to do, if they're unclear of how to do it, when they need to do it, why they need to do it. That's the kind of questions you got to figure out because there are probably some things in their job right now that they're not doing, right? And we need to figure out why. Because again, it goes back to that Gallup study. If they just didn't know they needed to do it, man, that's an easy fix. It's hey, we gotta have you do this, no problem, right? Easy turnaround. But if it's they don't believe in it or they don't want to do it, that could be a little different issue. So again, I think all performance issues can be traced back to two buckets. It's either a skill issue or a will issue. If it's skill, they don't understand how to do it. We can help those people. In fact, we love helping those people as leaders. That's what we're there for, is to help people when they don't know how to do something. Now, if they fall into the will issue camp, that's a little more challenging. They don't think it's important, they don't have motivation. Okay, at the end of the day, these people are harder to help because they first need to make the decision that they're going to change. And it's hard to get people to do that. Now, of course, I'm not gonna leave you hanging. I'm gonna give you some advice on how to handle both, but I think that we gotta figure out first is it a skill issue or a will issue? If it's a skill issue, count your lucky stars. You have got it made in the shade. This is gonna be easier than you think. If it's a will issue, I wish you speed in your journey. No, uh, we're gonna get through it. You can handle it, it's just it takes a little more nuance. And now you've figured out the root cause, right? And now it's time to create a plan. And this plan has to balance the company needs because at the end of the day, they're an employee and they need to be meeting performance guidelines, but it also needs to manage the human being. So you can't lean one way too far. You can't only care about the human and neglect the company goals, and you can't care too much about the company goals and neglect the human, right? It's that balance. And I think that's what comes with emotional maturity over time as a leader. You're gonna figure out how to balance and how to push back on different areas when you need to. So I want to transition and talk to you about how to actually make the plan. What's the strategy? How do you actually turn around a low performer? So I'm gonna share with you how I've done it in the past, and it's really simple, and I'm confident you can handle it. So let's get into it. The first thing you gotta do is you gotta identify what their block is. So we already talked about that, figure out if it's a skill or will issue. The next thing we gotta do is we gotta give our expectations. So we need to really be clear on this. What do you expect? How do you want it to be done? When do you want it to be done by what kind of communication do you want around it? Extra specific when you're in a situation like this with a low performer. They need that extra instruction. You can't just assume they're gonna figure it out. You need to be so clear. And when you're giving those expectations, I've really found a lot of value in doing a pulse check with the person as we're in that meeting. So literally I'll say, hey, you know, I expect that you show up to each of these partner meetings once a week. And I want you to make sure that you then share that with the broader team at our meeting once a month. I'm gonna pause there. Does that make sense? Do you have any questions for me? Do you think that's something you can handle? So I'm literally pausing. I'm making sure that they understand the expectations. I'm asking for buy-in. I'm making sure, hey, is there anything that's gonna get in our way from achieving this? So expectation time, super, super important. The next thing you gotta do, you gotta connect their personal or career goals with your expectations. So if it's a skill issue, easy enough. You just tell them, hey, we need to do this, most likely they're gonna start doing it. If it's a will issue, this is where it becomes really important. So let's say they say, I don't want to go to those partner meetings, I don't think they're valuable. Well, then we need to find a way to tie those partner meetings with what the employee's personal goal is. Do they want to become a better networker? Do they want to move up in their career? Do they want to make more money? Do they want to go into leadership? Find a way to tie what your expectations are to what their goal is. And you might have to get creative. You might have to think, well, how do those two really connect to each other? Take a minute and really show them how those two are closely aligned and the success of one relies on the other. I have found a lot of power in this. If you just simply just say, hey, I need you to work on this, hey, I need you to get better on this, and they don't believe in it, they're not gonna change. They have to deep in their core understand there is value in me doing this. It's not that I'm gonna get in trouble from the company, it's that I want to do this for my own reasons. The next thing you got to do is if it's a skill issue, this is your opportunity as a leader to show them how to do it. You can't just assume that they can figure it out if it's a skill thing. You need to validate and inspect what you expect. So literally, I would sit shoulder to shoulder, I would role play, I would help them write the email, I would help them literally go through whatever the expectation is, and I want to show them how to do it, and then I want them to show me how to do it. So I first teach them, then they need to teach me how to do it. That's how I really know that they understand what I'm asking them to do. And it's not just a one-time thing. I show them and they show me and then I'm done. This is a follow-up thing, right? This is a, I keep on top of this. I don't just set it and forget it as they say. Now, again, if it's the will issue, I want you to share what's at stake if they don't change. We're not threatening and we're not saying, hey, if you don't do this, you're gonna get fired. But we want to create an accurate picture of what could happen. It could be something as simple as, hey, Ed, I understand you don't want to do this, man. I get it. It's not your thing. You're not excited about it. But at the end of the day, if I'm looking to move people up, they have to be participating. I have to make sure that you're at least meeting expectations. Now, a lot of times managers, leaders aren't willing to be honest with their employees. They're uncomfortable. They don't want to tell them what's at stake if they don't change. Don't be afraid of that. Be honest with your employees, be direct and let them know, hey man, I want this to change. But if it doesn't, this might happen. This could happen. Like I can't protect you if you're not willing to participate and you're not willing to bring your all into work. The next thing you got to do is you gotta check in frequently. Now, I don't mean just checking in once a quarter, once a month, once you have a conversation like this. I mean like once a week. And you don't want to be checking with them every day. We're not micromanaging, but you want to show them that this is important to you. And you know, some leaders, they check in for a little bit and then they kind of fall off. That's not gonna be you. You gotta check in consistently until you see an actual change for them. Now, the next thing you gotta do, and this is the most important, you have to give them recognition. So when you're asking someone to change their behavior, to start doing something new, to change the way they've done stuff before, you have to lead with recognition. You're gonna start seeing them take some action. And the moment you see any progress, I don't care if it's an inch of progress, you need to celebrate the hell out of that. Ed, I really appreciate you making this a priority, man. Keep it up. I know you're gonna get where you need to be. Simple as that. But giving recognition and encouraging every time you see a little movement in the right direction, man, that's how you do it. Because you've heard me say this in the podcast before, and I'll say it again a million times. What we recognize, we get more of. So if I want them to be better at something, I gotta recognize it. So again, it goes back to the carrot, not the stick. And the next thing we gotta do is we gotta offer support. So we can't just do that one time where we train, show them how to do what they don't know how to do, but we need to offer ongoing support. So things you can do is check in with them once a week and say, hey man, how is that going? Do you need any help with that? Do we wanna role play some stuff? Do we want to talk through some stuff? Another really valuable tool that I've used in the past is I've paired them up with a peer. So kind of like a buddy system, peer support. Find someone who's good at the thing that they are lacking in and ask them to support each other. Maybe they chat every couple of weeks just to see how each other are doing. They're gonna help each other stay accountable and they're also gonna learn from someone who knows best. The last thing I'll say is you gotta stay consistent. Don't let them take advantage of you. Don't teach them something, don't set expectations and then forget about it. That's what poor leaders do. They have all these priorities and initiatives and they start them strong, but then they don't follow through. And guess what? Their employees realize it's not important, so they don't make it important. So you almost need to make it a little uncomfortable. You're gonna talk about it every single meeting and interaction until you see change. Now, I have found that for most people, that's enough, right? I have found that if you are really specific with your expectations, if you check in frequently, give them recognition, offer support, stay consistent, that usually fixes things. But you can have an amazing strategy. You can try everything I just said, amazing execution, and it can still go south. So, what I want to do now is cover some of the signs that'll let you know it's too late. This employee's too far gone, and you're not gonna be able to turn them around. So, here are the most common signs to know when it's too late to turn around a low performer. Sometimes we got to throw the talent as a leader. I hate to do it, I never wanted to do it, I feel like I'm giving up when I do it, but sometimes we have to. In some cases, things are beyond our control, and we just have to move on. If we continue to focus our time and energy on stuff that we cannot change, well then we're failing as a leader, but then we're also gonna affect the other people on our team. So moving on could look like a lot of different things. It could be transferring the associate, it could be helping them find another job within another company, or in some cases it can be letting them go, just like I told that story in the beginning. And honestly, this is probably one of the hardest parts of leadership, realizing that sometimes effort isn't enough. I can try as hard as I want as a leader, and I can still not get the desired result that I'm looking for. So, three quick ways that you can know if the employee is too far gone. So the first one, you don't see any change after sharing expectations and offering training. So let's say you go through that strategy, you share expectations, you're offering support, and nothing changes. That tells me that person doesn't believe in it. That tells me that person isn't willing to make a change. The next one that I've seen a lot is they keep making excuses to avoid accountability. That employee Carol would always make excuses. She would always tell me, Oh, I can't do this and this is why, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Excuses all the time. And it was just because she didn't want to take accountability for the way she was acting and the way she was handling stuff at work. The next one that I've seen all too often is they start affecting the rest of the team. So Carol, unfortunately, was just like that. The rest of the team could not stand to be around Carol. They didn't want to be in the same room with her. They didn't want to invite her to company parties. They literally avoided her at all costs. And that's not fair to the rest of the team. If one bad apple is affecting the amazing team that you have, you got to get rid of that bad apple or you got to change that bad apple into a good apple. What I'll say is turning around a low performer isn't about saving everyone. It's about giving folks a fair shot, doing your best to help the people who want to be helped. So before we wrap up, I want to give you a challenge. I want you to do an honest inventory of your team. I want you to ask questions like who's struggling? Who have you let it go too far with? This week, I want you to choose a conversation you've been avoiding and I want you to start it. I want you to have a conversation with your employees. You owe it to them to give them your clear expectations to follow up to ensure that they have the support they need. Now, at the end of the day, like I said, if it's a skill issue, you can fix that. If it's a will issue, I think you can also fix it, but it's going to take some care, it's going to take some nuance, and it's going to take some intentionality. I'm confident you can do it though. You're smart, you're capable. And I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day. Subscribe for new episodes every other Wednesday.

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Austin Hopkins

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