I know I talk about Disagree and Commit a lot, but I do think there is one specific situation where you as a manager shouldn’t disagree and commit but instead push back. Specifically, when people outside your team (or even your direct manager) label someone on your team (or your entire team) as a poor performer and you disagree. A longer post on this is coming next, but to change things up a bit I decided to start a discussion with you all! So what do you think? Should you disagree and commit when it comes to your people and their performance? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
I've had leaders that were willing to accept my assessment and others that were not. Regardless, I am a strong proponent of defending your people. Like Dave wrote, it's one of my top responsibilities.
I felt I had to tread carefully with one leader who had made up his mind about my engineers despite him having no firsthand knowledge of their work. With both types of leaders, I follow a similar approach, I provide examples of their work where they demonstrate desired traits or results. I highlight growth areas, especially when it directly relates to previous comments made about that team member. Stick to the facts and quantifiable data.
Unfortunately, I was not successful in getting him to recognize their value. This was one of the reasons I ultimately left that role. In the other case, when I provided factual and tangible examples, he was pleased to hear the team member was thriving.
If you have a top performer who gets labeled as an under-performer by people outside your team, you must defend that person. A major part of your job as a leader is accurately representing your team's contributions to the rest of the organization. If you fail, and this person gets sidelined or disparaged, it can wreck their career, and it can harm your company and your team!
This is probably in the top 3 job duties for a team leader.
How do you do this? I have never found good metrics to defend my top performing team members. Story points and ticket counts break down in harmful ways. So instead, I try to keep up-to-date narratives ready for my team members. "Oh you're talking about John? You mean the John that delivered the crucial fix that saved our relationship with customer X, and then figured out 3 issues that blocked other team members last week? That John??" These narratives carry a lot of weight.
As Dave says, it is hard to come up with concrete metrics for success like you could do for other functions like Sales. From my observations I feel controlling the perception is what ultimately works. If most people agree (qualitatively) this person is working well, then its easy to quiet the dissenting voices.
I've had leaders that were willing to accept my assessment and others that were not. Regardless, I am a strong proponent of defending your people. Like Dave wrote, it's one of my top responsibilities.
I felt I had to tread carefully with one leader who had made up his mind about my engineers despite him having no firsthand knowledge of their work. With both types of leaders, I follow a similar approach, I provide examples of their work where they demonstrate desired traits or results. I highlight growth areas, especially when it directly relates to previous comments made about that team member. Stick to the facts and quantifiable data.
Were you eventually able to convince the leader who had preconceived notions?
Unfortunately, I was not successful in getting him to recognize their value. This was one of the reasons I ultimately left that role. In the other case, when I provided factual and tangible examples, he was pleased to hear the team member was thriving.
Yeap, I would have left too :)
If you have a top performer who gets labeled as an under-performer by people outside your team, you must defend that person. A major part of your job as a leader is accurately representing your team's contributions to the rest of the organization. If you fail, and this person gets sidelined or disparaged, it can wreck their career, and it can harm your company and your team!
This is probably in the top 3 job duties for a team leader.
How do you do this? I have never found good metrics to defend my top performing team members. Story points and ticket counts break down in harmful ways. So instead, I try to keep up-to-date narratives ready for my team members. "Oh you're talking about John? You mean the John that delivered the crucial fix that saved our relationship with customer X, and then figured out 3 issues that blocked other team members last week? That John??" These narratives carry a lot of weight.
100% agreed Dave! and yes, anecdotes are very powerful..positive or negative.
As Dave says, it is hard to come up with concrete metrics for success like you could do for other functions like Sales. From my observations I feel controlling the perception is what ultimately works. If most people agree (qualitatively) this person is working well, then its easy to quiet the dissenting voices.