Fighting the Bad: What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do
Tim Sackett over at TLNT plainly talks about a difficult topic: why, as a HR professional, you need to champion the ‘must-do’ moves. Must-do moves are the things in your organization that you must own and absolutely see that they get done. And they’re not always comfortable. Sackett talks about the obvious example:
I asked the group a question: Do you have anyone in your organization that you need to get rid of?
Almost every company does, whether you openly talk about it or not. Problem is, preserving organizational integrity and culture requires difficult decisions. It means someone has to be the champion of ‘fighting the bad’, because a little bit of bad — a few bad employees, for instance — can have serious downstream effects on a team’s performance. And this job is yours as an HR pro. You can’t ask your hiring managers to paint over the bad with good, just like you can’t ask them to make this difficult decision. Here’s Sackett again:
What we realize, but many of our hiring managers fail to realize, is that “Bad is Stronger than Good” when it comes to employees. We hear all the time about “Addition through Subtraction,” and yet we struggle in our organizations to make this happen.
Most likely this happens in your organization because you are trying to make your hiring managers manage and have them make this decision. In reality, they have made the decision – and they told you. They hate conflict even more than you do, and this was their cry for help. Take it, run with it, make it happen.
I think a lot of companies don’t do this until cost-cutting or blatant performance issues force their hands. But what Sackett is trying to emphasize is that ‘bad is stronger than good’, and you can’t have bad if you want the good to shine. We’ve all seen a team or culture crippled by a few poor performers, and we know the old saw, ‘a few bad apples…’
Sackett’s point is a good one: if your company’s team integrity and culture is to remain effective, someone has to champion fighting the bad. If you’re HR, that’s you. Grab it and make it happen.
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More links:
MIPRO Consulting main website.
