Employee Performance Quadrants
How to organize hiring, cultivate talent, and at the same time consciously develop the company culture.
Finding employees, retaining them and developing them further is one of the most important skills of a manager. Without talented specialists, it is impossible to build a normal team. And without a team, a sustainable company.
At the same time, good personnel work takes a lot of time – both in the long term and directly in the work process.
And how much exactly?
In the HBR book “The First 90 Days” (its summary is here) a diagram is provided that clearly demonstrates that a new employee may need approximately 3 monthsso that it starts to bring benefits, and also in 3 months it will become break-even and begin to recoup the investment.
The area below the line on the left below is the so-called “used values”. This is due to the fact that the hired employee is just getting acquainted with the organization and his job responsibilities. You should not expect him to start bringing you net profit before three months (90 days) have passed.
It's understandable that as a manager, you're eager to hire people who can “fit in” on day one… but those demands are rarely realistic.
Does this mean you will have to wait 3-6 months to see how successful your candidate was?
Employee Performance Quadrants
Danny Meyer is one of my favorite business thinkers. He’s a pioneering restaurateur behind popular establishments like Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, and Shake Shack. He’s also known for advocating for authentic hospitality and employee-centricity through his consulting firm, Union Square Hospitality Group.
He wrote one of my favorite business books. Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business».
Some time ago, Danny shared one of the most powerful leadership frameworks with Tim Ferriss and briefly outlined it here. The basic idea is that there is four main types of employees with four different approaches to work. For each of them, you can determine the point of application of efforts and time frames. The main thing is to understand what type of person he belongs to.
Flowers and diamonds, puzzles and candles
Meyer divides people of each type into quadrants based on the principles of “Can” and “Can’t”, “Want” and “Don’t want”.
«If you have a person working for you who MaybeAnd wantshe is a flower. All you need is to water him regularly.”
It's common for managers to take “can/want” employees for granted. However, it's important to water these flowers with praise and recognition of their strengths. This certainly helps with employee retention, but it also helps you understand what kind of culture you want to create in your company. More on that later.
“If you have a person on your team who is still can'tBut wantsit is worth spending time on training him. It is worth giving him enough attention. By investing in training a new employee, you will give him a good lesson in hospitality. And at the same time, you will get a loyal member of the team».
What's interesting here is that Meyer is ready, in accordance with the HBR precepts, to give such employees up to six months for training and calls them precious stones.
Workers who have the right mindset but lack the right skills are diamonds in the rough. Many things can be learned if you have enough motivation.
Can't and won't: employees are candles
Unmotivated and underperforming team members undermine the morale and productivity of the entire team. Meyer writes:
“Under the chair of the man who can't And doesn't want toit is worth lighting a candle. Very soon he will understand that this is not the case. The longer such an employee stays in the team, the more his colleagues will ask themselves: why should I try if I can cut corners?»
I have seen this first hand in my coaching practice. One of my clients hired an important specialist and suddenly discovered that this person lacked a number of key skills and attitudes. At the hiring stage, this problem was successfully overlooked. After two months, we agreed that they would “light a candle» under this employee. During this conversation, we agreed that if there was no radical improvement within three months, the employee would be fired. By clearly setting expectations and goals, my client was able to overcome the disappointment and frustration of the first two months of employment, and the employee's termination process went more smoothly and without regrets.
He can, but he doesn’t want to: the puzzle man
It's like trying to fit a puzzle piece into the wrong place over and over again – no matter how hard you try, it still doesn't fit.
“The hardest thing, in my opinion, is with those who can, but doesn't want towith those to whom you can say: “You are much better than you want to seem, but for some reason you don’t want to appear in all your glory.”
He describes the process of parting with such employees this way: “You’re a great guy, but I feel like you’re a piece of a different puzzle.»
Meyer's four quadrants, key effort points and time frames are briefly presented here:
Corporate Culture Formula
Meyer, in his interview with Tim Ferriss, talks about how culture, existing in The company's culture is essentially the sum of the behavior patterns of all employees: those you reward and those you simply tolerate.
According to Meyer, employees will definitely notice if you, as a manager, start turning a blind eye to people in the “can/won’t” categories.» and “I can't/I don't want to»They will certainly think to themselves:
“Why does management continue to mess around with this guy instead of sending him to the bench or even demoting him?”
In short, the path to developing a corporate culture is to diligently water the flowers, polish the gems, say goodbye to the “puzzles” without regret, and consciously light candles under unmotivated employees.
It's as easy as pie, right?!
In practice, this turns out to be very difficult to implement. So-called “difficult conversations” are by definition difficult for both bosses and subordinates. Managers avoid participating in such conversations at all costs and prefer to wait until the situation resolves itself.
The Meyer Culture Formula highlights the cost of inaction—you can't create the culture you want if you allow ineffective people to drain the energy reserves of your flowers and gems.
Learn to be a mentor – and create mentors within your team
It’s not enough to simply water the flowers and part with the puzzles. In fact, the employees who bring in the most revenue are the gems: the people who can't, but want to workand they need additional support and mentoring to reach their potential.
If you work in a niche of increased complexity and high HR volatility, you will eventually face uncertainty for which there is no simple solution. For example, when any potential employee finds themselves in the “I can't” phase. Therefore, properly organized training of employees within the team is the only chance for successful HR work. But, one way or another, you will have to put up with the loss of resources and time.
If you can develop a coaching mindset in yourself and your team, you can always turn “I can’t” into “I can” through calmness, confidence and strong-willed participation in the employee’s training.
