(Time to read this Blog is about 3.5 minutes)

 

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “Rumors are entertainment for the uniformed.  When you don’t inform your staff about what’s going on, they make up stories to explain what they see.  Then, they pass on those stories as rumors.  Rumors distract and destroy!”       
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Not exactly a Biz Tip this week:
   The National Hockey League playoffs have started and, just for fun, I did some math comparing pro hockey and NFL football.  See below…
    
   1. Hockey is a more physically demanding and punishing sport to play at the pro level than NFL Football.  According to an extensive Study by ESPN, Boxing is the most physically demanding sport, Hockey is #2, Football is #3, Basketball is #4.  Baseball is #9 and Soccer is #10.  A full List of the Top 60 most physically demanding sports can be found at…
      https://www.topendsports.com/world/lists/fittest-sport/espn.htm#google_vignette
       
   2. In the NFL Football, which is less physically demanding, the Season is just 17 games, played over 18 weeks, with a maximum of 4 post-season playoff games for a total of 21 games.  They play just one game a week.
       
   3. In spite of hockey being more physically demanding, the NHL season consists of 82 regular season games in a 21-week Season.  So, Teams play 3 to 4 games a week, plus 2 practices, and off-ice training twice a week…plus travel time from city to city across North America. 
        
      On top of the 82-game Season, there are 4 rounds of playoffs, that run for another 8 weeks, consisting of a further 20 to 24 more games.  This is a total of 106 games for the Teams that make it all the way to the Stanley Cup finals.  So, the NHL Playoffs have more games than the entire NFL Season.
       
   4. The average salary in the NHL is US $3.5 mil and the average salary in the NFL is US $3.2 mil.
       
   5. The big takeaway here is that no athlete can play at peak performance for 106 hockey games a Season. Simply not possible, physically or mentally.  But the Season has to be that long for the owners to make money. 
       
3. The Cato Institute recently completed a Poll where 80% of Americans agreed that the country would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing. However, 75% of these same respondents said that they would not work in manufacturing.  As of the date of this Poll, there were 600,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs in the USA.
    
4. A shameless plug! If your company, Industry Association or local Chamber of Commerce has a Business Conference this year that will benefit from my bottom-line management and marketing insights and ‘straight talk’ delivery style, perhaps we should chat.  I’m booked up till the end of June, but have some availability in the 2^nd half of the year.
     
   I’ve delivered about 3,000 Conference Sessions in over 40 industries around the world…and I’m starting to get the hang of it.   As part of my commitment to deliver extraordinary outcomes, I do the homework to customize and I stay for the entire Event because some of the most important value is always delivered off-stage in quiet and confidential conversations.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.

 

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Is failure to deal with non-performance hurting your business?

Failure to deal with non-performance is one of the biggest problems in many businesses today

Several of my Biz Coaching clients are struggling with this problem right now as we work to terminate team members who never should have been hired in the 1^st place, or have been allowed to under-perform, defy and stonewall, frustrate customers, destroy morale, cause good people to quit in frustration and, in some cases, actively sabotage or defraud the company. 

These people should have been given the boot long ago and now it’s going to cost much more to get rid if them.  Don’t make this mistake.

The problem is even more complicated when the non-performers or toxic team members are shareholders, partners or family members. I’ve recently worked with a number of clients to clean up these complicated messes. 

For years I’ve stated that, ‘businesses don’t die from a single shot to the head…they die slowly but surely from a thousand uncompleted tasks.’  Staff under-perform or exhibit toxic behaviour because they’ve been allowed to get away with it.  This has to end…now!

The solution is simple. It starts with creating a culture of clarity, commitment, urgency and accountability.  As business owners, leaders or managers, our 1^st job is to create clarity about…

–  the compelling value and experience we commit to deliver,

–  the extraordinary future we commit to create,

– how we’ll get to that extraordinary future,

– the healthy bottom line that we commit to generate…and,

– how we commit to behave along the way (our values, ethics & standards).

Without ‘clarity’ there can be no commitment and without commitment there will be no urgency or accountability.  So, once we’ve created ‘clarity’, we’ll create a culture of commitment.  We’ll replace the words ‘goals, targets, aims and objectives’ with one word…’commitments’.  I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s so important that it needs to be repeated.  When we change our language, we change our culture.  We become what we speak.  To access my insightful Biz Tool #A-4 on creating ‘Clarity’ in your business, Click Here.

Here’s the simple 10-word solution to chronic non-performance. Every time you give someone a task or project, or make a request, ask this question, “By when can we agree that this will be completed?”  Then negotiate and document the fair and do-able commitment date, always follow up, reward success and deal quickly with non-performance.  Everyone on your team will quickly know that you mean business. 

Bonus tip:  When speaking with an employee about their need to improve their performance,  attitude or behavior in some specific way, the magic 11-word question to ask is basically the same, “By when can we agree that this improvement will be accomplished?”   Agree on a specific time by which the required improvement will take place and ask them for a plan as to how they will achieve that improvement. Also ask them how you can help support their journey of improvement.  Then, follow up to ensure that it has been done…and stays done. No back-sliding allowed.  

If you don’t have a professional HR function in your business to guide and assist you, a simple tip for tracking employee performance over time is to create a file for each person reporting to you.  Every time they have a significant success, significant failure or behavioral problem, after you speak to them about it, make a quick note, date it and place it in their file. Many managers have the employee sign the note to confirm that the conversation took place. Then, when you’re evaluating staff for raises, promotions or dismissal, you have an accurate, balanced record of their performance. 

When the time finally comes to terminate someone, it’s essential to have that written record of non-performance or toxicity and proof that they’ve been talked to repeatedly about the need to get their act together, when those conversations took place, and what the result was.  If you get sued for ‘wrongful dismissal’, the side with the best documentation generally wins. It’s also important to seek guidance from an experienced labour lawyer.  Getting rid of non-performing or toxic team members can be tricky…especially if you’ve ignored the problem for some time. 

Everyone on your team is part of your value, or part of your problem.  What are you doing to reward and grow your ‘value’ people, and to rescue or dismiss your ‘problem’ people? 

                                                          

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.

April 29, 2025