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Managing Underperformers | Jack Danger

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Underperformance is when a person or a team is not bearing their share of the organization’s load. Their colleagues are either relying on them and getting let down, or they’ve learned not to rely on them at all. There are two fully unrelated causes of underperformance: Refusal to Align and Failure to Execute. Every person I’ve fired, both ICs and managers, refused to align their goals with the company’s. They were well-intentioned and often highly capable but pursued their own direction. This might sound like a small problem but it’s fundamentally a question of values. Does this person want to be a functional part of this team? Or is this team an excuse to work on some cool technology or their pet project? It’s impossible to coach someone into different values — all we can do is set boundaries and let the person decide if they’d rather align or leave. I was an underperformer in this way in 2018 when I led Infrastructure at Gusto. I thought I’d been hired to improve both Platform and In

Table of Contents Refusal to align Addressing Refusal to Align A one-week timeline Failure to Execute Do they know what's expected of them? Have they learned helplessness? Do they have the skill for their current project? Have they received literally any feedback that they're off track? Crises in their personal life? Are they subject to a harmful managerial relationship? Getting back to winning Seeing this at the team level Failure to execute Refusal to align Kind managers address underperformance early and accurately. Underperformance is when a person or a team is not bearing their share of t

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