The Erin Edit

As a manager, can you have “global” policies and decisions?

Quick answer: yes.

Longer answer: there is a lot you have to do to make sure that “yes” is legal in all the places where you have team members.

Whether you are managing in a multi-state environment in the U.S. or have team members in multiple countries, you are at the mercy of all applicable laws: country > state/region > local.

Example: United States > New York State > New York City

If you are clear to make a decision in Texas, you also have to be sure it’s gucci in let’s say Ireland.

Which according to Irish courts, Elon Musk and team did not do in a recent ruling on a termination case. An email sent out company-wide with an ultimatum of: agree to the requirements listed or not doing so is a sign of your resignation.

In “at-will” land aka most of the U.S., while messy and not recommended, this approach seemed to fly. But the Irish said not so fast. So much so, they awarded the terminated employee the equivalent of about $600,000 USD. X’s determination that the team member resigned simply because they didn’t hit a “yes” button on an email violated law, a court ruled.

You might say this is on-brand for Elon, but broad sweeping decisions like this happen daily in the business world.

It’s important you understand the ins and outs of the laws where you have team members. You by no means have to be an expert if you are a front-line manager, but you do need to be informed, so you are operating within the right boundaries. It helps to have a great relationship with HR (or an external equivalent if no in-house HR team).

Most common areas where mistakes are made:

• Time and attendance including PTO - shoutout to California for their California Lunch Penalty law (CLP)
• Termination - like what happened with X
• Payroll taxes - most commonly putting someone somewhere new without setting up state/local payroll taxes
• Safety regulations - state OSHAs like to be different from federal OSHA, fun!
• Employment agreements - what people can/cannot/required to sign like sales commission, non-competitions, and EEOC rights

When I work with managers, compliance is part of every conversation in some capacity because it’s a fundamental part of managing people. It’s also the company’s achilles heel and in some cases can bring about criminal charges like timecard fraud.

It might be boring, but getting the fine print right from a legal/policy standpoint is critical for being a strong manager of people.

The brilliant lyrics of one Ms. Taylor Alison Swift are so relatable for many of the personal experiences in our lives. They can also quickly remind us of our workplace. If TTPD reminds you of work, it’s likely time to find a new job. Further, if you feel inclined to send “The smallest man who ever lived” to your manager, you probably should have left or switched teams months ago.

TTPD has done a brilliant yet sometimes undesired job of surfacing current and past workplace hurt. If you are in the past camp, feel all those feelings, don’t send any texts or emails, and then get back to your present. If you are in the current camp, no company or manager is worth you feeling this way. 

I know the market is not fun right now. You do not have to turn in your resignation letter right now but start preparing: revamp your resume, update your LinkedIn, join job seeking groups online, start reconnecting with your network, say yes to more industry events where you can meet new people. Just do something to take control back.

There are workplaces that leave you with so much damage it can take years to unpack in therapy and cause you to adopt protective behaviors that are not always conducive in future jobs. For example, if you were yelled at for every decision you made previously, you might ask future managers for input on everything due to your decision paralysis.

2 questions you can ask yourself:

1. Is this workplace adding to or taking away from my mental health
2. Is this workplace adding to or taking away from my physical health

You have bills to pay but you also have one life. Live it well, so you can move into your “The Alchemy” workplace era.

Have you walked into work or jumped on a video call and five minutes before tears were streaming down your face? Or you were in a heated argument with someone? Then the clock ran out and you had to count to three and put your game face on.

As a manager of people, you have people counting on you every work day. Finding the balance between being human and respecting the working relationship boundaries is hard on a regular day. Add in emotional stress and it can feel impossible.

Your team can absolutely tell when something is off with you. It’s 100% okay to say “today is a hard day” or “If I seem a little off, I’ve got some personal stuff going off but it’s not you” so they have some context. Without that info, their default is likely to think you are upset with them and they’ve done something wrong. Or worse, they are getting fired. That mental spiral happens quickly and you can control it from happening with a simple statement. Sharing that things aren’t always gucci is beneficial, so your team has permission via your action to in return tell you they are having an off day without any negative repercussions.

What you want to avoid saying is “today is a hard day because I found that my significant other is on dating apps and now I have no place to live”. While that is devastating, the added detail is crossing the working relationship boundary. That info is reserved for your besties.

If things are really tough, take time off. If that isn’t possible reschedule meetings. Having awareness around your emotional state is critical. It’s unfair to your team to show up when you are distracted, on edge, angry or any other emotion that sets you up for acting or saying things that aren’t healthy.

You can in fact do things with a broken heart. The goal is to do it in a way that doesn’t negatively impact your team and their stability at work. “Lights, camera, smile”

Ever experienced anything that started out as one thing and ended being something much bigger? That's essentially scope creep.

The term is usually used for projects but it also applies to the scope of a role. As a manager, you need to keep an eye on scope creep for each of your team members. Roles will start to expand and all the sudden you have someone who has far extended beyond the original scope of their role.

At that point you need to decide 1) Does this person need a promotion and title change to properly reflect the expanded responsibilities or 2) Does this person need to go back to the original scope and they added pieces needed to be delegated elsewhere including to a potential new role that's needed?

I see scope creep with every single corporate client I work with.

Evaluating the scope of roles is an ongoing task and one you will be more likely to stay on top of with regular 1x1s.

At the end of the day, the job description, title, and pay need to all align. And it's your responsibility as a manager to ensure that is the case. I will sometimes get pushback on a job description exercise from managers because they see it as an HR formality. When in reality, it's a critical evaluation to ensure everything is arranged in its correct place. Inevitably, the exercise will bring to light where adjustments are needed. It's also a great exercise to see if the manager and team members are aligned. If your team members were to write down the bullet points of their roles, would those match what you as a manager writes down? They should be at least 85% aligned.

My recommendation: Ask each of your team members to complete a Current Scope Analysis: where they write down bullets of the work they are doing, the frequency of that work, and how many hours it takes. Then review it together.

This might create fear - they might start to think you are trying to understand their role, so you can replace them especially if you haven't reviewed it this way before. That's all normal and valid. So how you communicate it will be very important. Explain to them the context, that you are wanting to ensure there is alignment and that the scope of their role is realistic for one human (or some variation of that).

With the layoffs happening in the workforce right now, I'm very concerned this will get worse for people. Why? Because a lot of companies will cut heads without reducing the expectations. When that happens, they pile the additional work onto the heads that are left. As a manager, you need to ensure that you are advocating for the appropriate balance of resources and expectations.

Companies are an ever-changing organism, therefore, you need to continuously reevaluate if the current organizational design and scope of roles make sense. And if it doesn't adjust accordingly.

Chat soon!

Erin

Here's what we know:
-poor managers affect their team members' lives negatively
-strong managers affect their team members' lives positively
-right now, only 32% (Gallup) of team members have strong managers
-68% of the workforce has a poor manager = 68%  of the workforce has a strong negative influence in their lives

As a manager of people, you can beat the statistic. You don't have to be part of the 68%.

So how do you do it?

1. You get really solid at the fundamentals.
2. You prioritize being a manager above all else at work - your time and attention align with your team being your #1 priority

It might seem simple, but it's going to take work. You need to develop yourself in each of the pillars of being Manager Material. You've got to want to be a high-performer when it comes to managing people. In short, you have to care.

It's worth it.

You'll end up with a highly engaged AND productive team which will ultimately skyrocket your career. A lot of people reference the 80/20 model - 20% of your efforts lead to 80% of the outputs. Focusing on being a strong manager is part of that 20%.

So are you the manager who wants to be a positive force in your team's lives?

If so, we can absolutely change the world one team at a time.

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What happens when it's not in balance was front and center in my household last week. It was a disruption to our daily life and one we are grateful for. Why? Because when we know something is wrong, we can address it. There's been a ~30% increase in mental health issues with teens since 2020 and one of our kiddos is part of that group.

Too many people suffer in silence.

Too many people try to "tough it out".

Too many people have their mental health negatively impacted by companies and ineffective managers.

I've seen firsthand the damage a poor manager can have on the people not only on their team but others in the organization. Unfortunately, it goes unchecked due to a lack of strong performance management systems and valuing productivity over human impact. In all reality the "strong performer" isn't actually that because while it may seem like they are getting a lot done on the surface, the mess they are creating far outweighs any benefit from checking off their to-do list.

Organizations must hire, reward, performance coach, promote, and terminate based on more than just the functional expectations of a role. They must also include the tenets/competencies/principles that define the workplace expectations. The majority of performance issues are often involve these tenets not the functional requirements. Without a framework to fall back on, managers are ill-equipped to properly hold their teams accountable.

If you are in a company that hasn't defined these, create them for your team. Each company is different and because someone is technically qualified for the role doesn't mean they will be successful in every environment. I've seen people thrive in one company and flounder in another all with the same title and scope. So you need to define what makes someone successful in your specific company - be specific in your definitions.

When I work with teams to implement this, the most common reaction is relief. Managers feel like they can better approach difficult situations that once felt confrontational. They also become hopeful that bad behavior is finally going to be addressed with co-workers and upper management. The consistency creates a sense of safety.

As managers, we have to be intentional with processes, so we are impacting our teams positively. We have such a tremendous responsibility. And that responsibility can't get swallowed by a long list of things we need to get done.

Here's the fundamental problem plaguing managers: time.

Why?

Because when expectations and the time to execute them are being evaluated, the critical requirements of people management are often not part of that conversation. "40 hours is plenty of time to complete the work" - the work being the functional part of the role only.

But when someone is a manager of people, their #1 priority is their management expectations.

So everything is backwards.

How should it go?
1. Evaluate expectations of the role starting with the full list of management duties followed by the functional ones (marketing, account management, sales, etc)
2. Get realistic about the amount of time needed for managing people and the rest of the time goes to functional duties
3. Evaluate what doesn't fit function wise and figure out what resources you need reporting to you to take on those expectations

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In a recent project with a client, we were evaluating her workload along with her team's. As part of the exercise, we were building her future role. We did a brain dump of everything she was dreaming up for that role and added in the management expectations. When we started evaluating time to execute, we began listing out how much time each people management activity was going to take weekly including 1x1s, team alignment meetings, management admin tasks like reviewing timecards and expense reports. She was shocked at how much time that actually was taking up. For her it was around 20-22 hours per week due to the nature of her role, team design, and company. We were then able to evaluate the functional bullet points and figure out what she really needed to own versus what she should delegate. With the new structure we landed on, we feel much more confident she can become the manager she desires to be because we designed a path that actually made sense.

Prioritizing your time around management activities will lead to a highly engaged team which in turn will lead to greater productivity. You may not have time today, but as a manager, you have a responsibility to reevaluate where your time is going and where you need to appropriately delegate. Where you spend your time should match your priorities and those priorities aren't up for negotiation. Your team comes first.

Check out the Wellness Guide for an exercise to evaluate where you are spending your time.

Chat soon!

Erin

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Yep, you read that right. My birthday is 4/20. Bouncers at bars in college thought my ID was fake like I was trying to pull a McLovin situation. But this email is about birthdays in general, not just mine. Do you have your team members' birthdays marked on your calendar? Do you know if they like having their birthdays celebrated? Make sure you know this information and that if they do like celebrating their birthdays, that you don't miss the opportunity to do so. It doesn't have to be big. Sometimes just acknowledging it via text, email, or team meeting is more than enough. But if they love celebrating their birthdays, and you miss it, not good. So if you are behind on this, I ask you to celebrate my birthday by prioritizing birthdays with your team! I freaking love birthdays! Cheers to another trip around the sun! Erin p.s. Make sure you are taking time off to celebrate your own personal milestones and those of your loved ones. It's time you'll never get back.

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When that voice (you know the one I'm talking about - the pessimistic, hangry voice in your head that is SO dRaMaTiC) starts to say things like "you aren't good enough for this", I want you to ask yourself this question: "What evidence do I have to support that claim?"

It's likely nothing, or if it's something, it's just that you don't know how to do everything when it comes to managing people.

Spoiler alert, I have yet to find a single manager that does. Seriously, from CEOs to front-line managers, they are all making their fair share of mistakes. Actually, some of the worst managers I've encountered are at the top - their impact is multiplied because the blast radius is larger. They are also often the most resistant to change. Give me front-line managers all day long - they are my absolute favorite to work with because I don't have to convince them to be better, they already want it. The difference between the poor managers and the great ones? Intentionality. The managers of the 32% (Gallup) of people who are saying they have great managers are the ones continuously developing themselves, focusing on the fundamentals, and prioritizing the success of their team members.

So are you doing those things? If not, it's time to get working. But this is work YOU CAN DO. Luckily, we're not trying to solve how to time travel. Being a great manager is actually quite straightforward, it just takes time and focus.I want you to commit to taking one step towards being a better manager today. Whether that's listening to the first episode of the Manager Material Podcast in Podcast Papers, reviewing the Manager Material Job Description download in Action Guides, or if you want to go big, watch the Manager Material Part 1 training in All Access Development - Dev Drops.

‍You can do this. I'm in your corner.

Chat soon!

Erin

As a manager it can be really tempting to overshare with your team. I know because I absolutely made this mistake as a new manager.

A lot of the time this comes from a desire to:

1. Have your team like you
2. Have them see you trust them
3. Get things off your chest, so you don't feel alone/wrong

But ultimately, managers who overshare have bad boundaries with their team. And the ironic part is that in oversharing, they are actually breaking down trust.

I recently had a client who overshared details of a situation that was only impacting the manager. In oversharing, the manager burdened their team. It was incredibly unfair of the manager to do so. This manager's intentions were likely pure, but the process was broken. The manager didn't stop to process the impact of their decision. They likely reacted out of emotion and wanted strength in numbers. Unfortunately, in this particular situation, the burden on the team will be long-lasting.

So think about your past conversations with your team.

• Are you sharing details that aren't meant for them to hear? It doesn't mean that they "can't" hear them, but is it fair to them?
• Are you communicating things about your personal life that need to stay in your personal life?
• Are you complaining about how much you have on your plate making them now worried about taking your time?

My recommendation is to be very intentional with what you share and to think through not on the impact on your team but the "why" behind your reason to discuss it in the first place. You can build a strong relationship with your team without oversharing!

Just keep in mind, you can't unwind what was said. Hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

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While we want to treat everyone equally, the reality is, certain logistics can be impacted by team members who have kids. For example, PTO requests all coming in for the same period of time like Spring Break.

If you just let things happen, you'll likely find yourself in a situation you're unprepared for with an unhappy team.

Picture 5 of your 7-person team requesting off for Spring Break week. What do you do? You most likely can't say yes to everyone. If you don't head this off with a plan, you might be sitting a few weeks out with 5 of your team expecting to be off work that week.

This situation is true around major holidays regardless of child status as well!

Here are some suggestions for how to navigate this:

1. Know the times of the year where this is more likely to happen and set reminders to address with the team well in advance (families often plan over a year in advance for vacations).
2. Approve PTO for high-demand times based on performance.
3. Set-up a high-demand rotation: every other year half get SB, if someone gets SB one year, that don't also get Christmas.
4. Make this about high travel season management and not about whether or not someone has children or their marriage dynamic.
5. Set clear expectations on when a decision will be made on PTO approvals - needs to be reasonable, so people can book trips.

There is no perfect answer here, but not doing anything is definitely the wrong approach. Gather information from your team, look at PTO reporting - where are your hot spots in the past?), and then find a solution - be willing to adjust.

Chat soon!

Erin

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Here we are in March - almost through the first quarter of 2023. Time indeed flies. It's a great time to take stock of a few key things in managing your team now that we've got our stride in 2023. If you aren't intentional, your time will be managed by deadlines and other urgencies. Think about these questions and topics below and let me know how I can help!

I. How's your documentation for your team coming so far?
In your 1x1's so far this year, have you taken advantage of the free 1x1 template or made it your own? Are you keeping good notes, setting agendas, and being super clear on the expectations set for each individual while noting any resource discussions and needs? If you are, great job! It's not too late though if you haven't. Check out the Action Guides space and look for the "1x1 Template for Managers." This is the best way to set you up for the upcoming mid-year and end-of-year review cycles, and more importantly, it is the number one way you can make sure you have a highly engaged team. Confusion on expectations and what resources are needed to achieve them can kill productivity and lead to unwanted attrition. It takes just a few weeks of holding yourself accountable to using a shared template and you won't go back.

Dig In: If you are an MM subscriber, check out the 5 minute in depth video on Holding 1x1's!

II. Where are you against your goals or targets?
Thinking about your overall team and scope of your role. How are you doing? Are you super clear on YOUR expectations? If you are in sales or a revenue driving function for example, do you know exactly what is expected? If you are in development, how is your delivery? Quality? Take a look at your "controllable inputs" - do you know the path from start to desired outcome? Sometimes we get bogged down staring at a daunting number - "we have to hit $2 Million in revenue" - and we don't take the time to break it into the 7-8 steps needed to get there. What are the immediate steps you and your team can tackle that you strongly believe will lead you to the outcome? Are you measuring them often? Providing feedback? Coaching your team? If you are and you're discovering that the goal seems impossible, that usually means "impossible with the resources I have today." So what would it take? More people? Better pricing? Better tools? Changes to the product or service you are offering? More leads from marketing? When you take on the role of manager, you now own a good part of driving needed change and often that is resourcing. Make sure you take a look at how you and your team are doing and if you are missing the target, proactively dive into why. Conversely, if your team is doing really well, make sure you recognize them and call out great successes often. What's driving that success? Is it something you can teach others? Can you use that learning to help the broader company?

Dig In: If you are an MM subscriber, check out the 6 minute video on Reward & Recognition!

III. How are you doing in developing your team? Are they challenged? Are they engaged?
As a quick check in, you may want to work with your HR business partner and do a quick survey of your team. Assuming you have 5 or more people, you can do an anonymous survey (don't collect name or email) and at a minimum ask them to rate:

1. I know what is expected of me in my role
2. I have the tools and resources needed to do my job.
3. I would recommend working for [this company] to a friend or college.

Each of these gets a 1-4 rating with 4 being best or "yes" and 1 worst or "no." You should ask in open text something like "What is one thing we could do better?" and then leave an open text box for "Anything else you want to share?" This type of survey as simple as it is can tell you alot about how you are managing expectations and resources in those 1x1's. Google Forms are free. Survey Monkey is inexpensive. There are several available tools out there.

Dig In: For MM Subscribers, check out the Dev Resources links for your team!

IV: How are you investing in your own development?

Your company can only do so much, and in most cases, that is a fairly small amount. Are you challenging the way you think by exposing yourself to other ways of thinking? Is anyone speaking into your life that challenges or validates you? Opportunities can be as simple as YouTube videos (I love Simon Sinek for example), Books (reading Unreasonable Hospitality now and loving it), mentors, or just staying active here at Manager Material. Monthly trainings, Mini Drops, Courses - all help to stretch your thinking and make you better for your team.

Dig In: Have you completed the Manager Material Dev Drop (Part 1)? How about the Great Hiring Course to hone your skills as an interviewer and build the best possible team?

If you haven't hit your high gear yet this year, there's still time, but jump in now! Let's crush 2023! I can't wait to hear about it as we go through the year!

-Erin

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All managers have blind spots: in the way you operate and in the people on your team. I haven't met a single manager including myself who didn't have a blind spot somewhere.That's okay.However, once you are made aware of that blind spot (it's often something getting in the way of others), you need to develop sophistication to prevent it from happening again. Let's break down the 2 different types of blind spots.

‍Blind Spot 1 - The Way You Operate
When I work with managers, the tension or conflict they are causing in the way they operate is usually tied to something they are great at. For example, if a manager is competitive, that means they are an athlete in business. They will run fast and hard at a finish line put in front of them. That strength can also mean they move too quickly, get impatient, and can compete directly with their team making the glory all about themselves.One of the best ways to get ahead of your individual blind spots is to take the CliftonStrengths Assessment. It's $60, but it spells out your strengths AND the blind spots associated with those strengths. Every manager I work with takes this assessment at the start of our relationship.

CliftonStrengths 34

Learn what makes you unique and how to maximize your potential by taking this talent assessment and discovering all 34 of your CliftonStrengths themes.

‍(not an affiliate link - just an incredible development resource for you!)

‍If someone you work with brings up an area where you might not be operating the best, take time to ask questions. It's natural to want to defend yourself, but you need to override that instinct. Get to know the context that led to this feedback. The more data you have, the better. You likely didn't intend for this to happen, so you need to understand how your approach didn't mesh with that person or group of people. Management is all about the individualized approach, so what might work for one of your team members doesn't for another.

The more you know about your approach and the needs of your team, the better off you'll be at heading this off.

‍Blind Spot 2 - The People On Your Team

‍This is when you have someone on your team that shouldn't be there, but they are. They are there because they've always been there. You might feel like you owe them, you might have them there because you trust them, or you might have them there because you are rewarding loyalty over performance. Regardless, this blind spot is wreaking havoc on your team. This person is essentially "protected". If you have one of these people on your team, you may not hear anything negative about them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. It just simply means that the rest of the team is too afraid to say anything to you and/or they know it won't make a difference.

This negative effective is compounded if that person has a team reporting to them.

So how do you know if you have a blind spot in a person?

Reevaluate your entire team as if you are a 3rd party (bonus, find a 3rd party to help you): 1) What is their performance - are they meeting or exceeding the expectations set for them? 2) Does their skillset/experience match what the business needs from them or has the business outpaced them? This doesn't necessarily mean you need to get rid of them, but you absolutely need to invest in a 3rd party to develop them in their particular function 3) Why do you want them on your team? If you can't point to anything meaningful outside your relationship, there's a good chance there's an issue.

I had an executive client who had a person blind spot. Despite me providing the company's feedback on this individual, the exec still held onto them. Two years later, the problem was still there, and it had evolved so much that this exec's future was now in jeopardy. Why did this exec hold onto someone so long despite the obvious negative consequences? They strongly rewarded loyalty at the expense of rewarding performance. In doing so, it held the whole company back and sent a message to the high-performers that loyalty mattered more than performance.

At the end of the day, your goal should be to continuously develop (Manager Material Trait) yourself. Doing so makes you a better manager for your team and sets an incredible example for them. A manager who lacks self-awareness (Manager Material Trait) is one who is headed down a path to having a disengaged team.

TL;DR: you will have blind spots - you just need to be proactive in finding them and be willing to address them urgently, effectively, and with humility.

When a teapot heats up, you hear its familiar whistle. That's due to the steam being released as the water temperature rises changing its chemistry. Without that small space for the steam to escape, the pressure would become too great for the pot leading to a disaster.

You are no different.

As a manager, you cannot protect your health and maintain a level-headed approach if your own stress continues to build up. Here are 3 tips on how to ensure your steam has somewhere to go:

1) Keep your resume updated and stay in the market  - you always need to be ready and willing to leave your current job. Even if you are 100% over the moon happy right now. Once you start feeling trapped, you can fall into an unhealthy spiral. I talk to so many managers who are at the end of their rope and haven't touched their resume in years. Remember staying at a company is not equal to a romantic relationship, loyalty has no place. Your company is always keeping its options open, so should you.

2) Find a healthy physical outlet - You don't have to hit the treadmill every day, but maybe go for a walk, take your work outside and get sunlight in your eyes. Maybe its ensuring you are drinking more water each day and less alcohol.

3) Support your mental health - This can be anywhere from working from a coffee shop twice a week to seeing a therapist weekly to ensuring you aren't ditching your social life/things you love to do for work. Whatever you need to do to protect this, do it.

Challenge: Find one thing, just one, you can do over the next week - your version of the teapot's whistle - to release some steam in a healthy way!

An odd question I know. But go with me here.

Having a team identity or in professional speak, a sub or micro-culture, is vital to your team's success. As long as it's not in conflict with the overall company's. When done properly it's the way your team specifically operates due to its unique function and makeup of team members.

A hotel has copy and paste rooms even down to the art in most cases. You can go from room to room and see little to no variety.

When it comes to a house, every room is different. Each has its own vibe and purpose while remaining part of the overall structure of the home: walls, roof, and foundation.

So what make a team's identity? It comes down to align on three important things: purpose, strategy, and respect.

1) Is your team aligned on the purpose of what they do? Do they believe in it?

2) Is your team aligned on the strategy of what you are trying to do together? Do they even know the bigger picture, so they connect their individual work to the broader goal?

3) Do they respect each other but, more importantly, do they respect you as their manager?

So are you as a manager relying on upper management to direct this broadly or are you digging in and ensuring your team is creating its own sense of belonging and cohesion through a connection to what the team is trying to accomplish?

In short, are you copy and pasting like a hotel, or are you creating a room within a home based on your unique purpose and makeup as a team?

Tip: reminder that respect isn't about friendship - you are there as a manager to help make your team successful, not to spill the tea ;)

While this isn't exactly scientific, in my experience working with managers over the last decade, people can turn on the charm if you will for 90 days.

Why does this matter?

If you don't have a clear understanding of success for a role, the proper plan for development and performance management, it's easy for low performers to keep hanging on. You've probably seen this at least once at a company where a problematic person seems to always fall under the radar. Maybe you've had the thought "how on earth does this person still have a job?"

Or what can happen too is what I like to call "hot potatoing" - passing a problematic team member around to another manager which just ultimately resets everything with each hot potato pass. I'm working with a company who has now passed someone like this to 3 different managers and this person's poor performance is wreaking havoc on the company.

Without that clarity, it's easy to fall into the trap of "oh they are doing great" in the two weeks following a performance conversation, writeup, or PIP. And that's wonderful, but they need to show consistency over a period of time. It can't be a sparkler situation where the performance is shining bright but only for a bit. People often shine the brightest right after a mistake is made.

For example, I just flew out of the Austin, Texas airport. A lot of people are nervous right now to fly out of there due to a recent near miss between a FedEx flight that was landing and a Southwest flight that was taking off. All due to a traffic control error. But I wasn't afraid. Why? Because I know that particular traffic control tower is on high alert after something so jarring. It's likely the safest time to ever flight out of Austin right now because that event shook people awake.

Now, what happens if the root cause of the incident isn't addressed - overworked team members due to understaffing, poor training, lack of engagement? That group will slide right back into the environment that led to the near miss in the first place.

In short, after we've messed up and it's been "exposed", we see high performance. But that isn't sustainable unless why the mistake happened in the first place is properly addressed.

So what to do as a manager? Get clear on why someone went off track, be clear in your feedback, create a long-term development path to effectively address the root cause and what the expectation is moving forward. Be realistic and don't let people "off the hook" until you have seen sustained performance instead of relying on the temporary, bright spot.

At the end of the day, one low performer and lack of accountability can damage your entire team. It takes only one drop of food coloring to dye an entire pitcher of water.

Why the use of the word "family" at work is incredibly misguided.

For everyone, the term family means something different. For some, that's trauma-filled. For some, that's joy-filled. But everyone has a different lens they look through when they hear that word. When you say "family" that could evoke really painful memories for those reporting to you.

Family dynamics are vastly different from work.

Work is a transactional relationship at the end of the day. Someone provides services in exchange for financial compensation. While it's not that simplified in action, that's at the core of it. That's not at the core of a family.

In a family, you aren't at risk of losing your livelihood through termination. There isn't a formal performance review process.

So as a manager or executive in a business, the use of the word family is inappropriate and in extreme cases used to manipulate others.

Instead, use "team." We are a "team."

We rely on each other but we have no long-term obligation to this group of people. At the end of the day, we can be estranged from our family, but we can't change who they are. We can with work. We can change that at a moment's notice.

So let's keep lanes clear as managers and not blur the lines for our team by mislabeling who and what we are.