Coaching a Low Performer
Let me tell you about a time when I coached a low performer.
I’ll give a bit of a background about what Dave’s problem was, talk about a pivotal conversation, and then talk about how I coached them into becoming the tech lead on the team.
Who was Dave
I had just inherited a team that included Dave the direct. Dave was in a junior role (L2 engineer) and was performing acceptably at that level; however, his former manager indicated he had been at that same level for his entire 5 years at the company and the expectation was that he should really be at the senior engineer level. Some companies (notably Facebook) have an “up or out” policy where engineers who aren’t promoted in a timely manner are let go. My company didn’t have that policy formally, but did have the expectation that engineers progressed in their career until they reached at least the senior level.
Dave’s main problem was that he didn’t follow up with other people. His projects would inevitably be delayed because they had a dependency on another person who didn’t prioritize them. He would point out that they had publicly commited to helping him on the Jira ticket but then hadn’t followed through on their commitment. I would always ask if he should follow up with them, but his favorite phrase was “I shouldn’t have to do that, it’s not my job.”
The first few times this happened, I raised my eyebrows but didn’t push too much harder. I had only been working with Dave for a month or two and I firmly believe that effective feedback has to come from a solid relationship and place of trust. Eventually I had a strong enough relationship with him to understand that he needed a fairly direct confrontation.
The pivotal conversation
The pivotal conversation came at around 3 months into my time working with Dave. We were in a 1:1 and talking about an upcoming project that might slip because he was worried that another engineer wouldn’t do the work they said they would. The following is a rough transcription:
Me: Have you considered following up?
Dave: I shouldn’t have to do that, it’s not my job!
Me: If you don’t follow up, will they do the work on time?
Dave: Probably not.
Me: (with an amused tone) … Dude! Then I don’t care what you think your job is … if you know you need to do something to complete a project, then that is your job!
After Dave picked his jaw up off the floor, he asked a question that indicated he’d had an “aha” moment:
Dave: … oh, ok. How do I do that?
Coaching
Now this became a coaching conversation, a very different conversation. I first explained to him my framework for following up See Escalate the Channel and other posts
, demonstrated how I followed up with people myself, shadowed him as he followed up his first few times, and then continued to ask him abut it and give him advice.
Within a month, there was a clear difference. Within 6 months, he was the best person on the team at using relationships to achieve results I think the fact that he didn’t really call in favors for 5 years may have helped…
. I was easily able to promote him to senior engineer and he became the tech lead on the team. It was an amazing turnaround and I’m really proud of him.