Sine Wave Management
Managing high performers is a joy. They self-regulate. They achieve. They take things off your plate and require little day to day maintenance. There is a draw to invest your time and effort in the people who are awesome. They pay dividends and who doesn’t want to claim some measure of success from their achievements?
True Top performers should require little of your time, but a great deal of your understanding. You need to understand them and understand how and why they are a Top performer. This is not so you can replicate it or infect others with success – the good kind of infection!—but so that you can be prepared if, or more accurately when, they drop from that pedestal. Someone who performs at a high level, forever, is an aberration.
To use some sports data, from 1871 – 2017 over 18,918 have played Major League Baseball. In 146 years of play, in a largely consistent game, only ~50 have hit more than 400 career home runs, which is, generally speaking, a Hall of Fame worthy career achievement. That’s .26% of all players. If you have a team of ten, statistically speaking, you’ll see one person perform at a top level for approximately one quarter of the year.
In other words, prepare for someone to drop from a Top performer.
But prepare for them to drop from a Top performer to a Core performer—or even a Low performer— so that you can get them back to a Top performer.
Performance as a Sine wave. People are always moving, up and down, top to bottom, bottom to top. Good management minimizes the time on the bottom and maximizes the time on top. Good management understands how to do that and what is required to achieve that trend line. Good managements sees the trend and moves to correct quickly.
Why Does a Top Performer Drop?
Four highly interconnected causes drive a Top performer to drop to a Core or Low performer. Bear in mind, none of these exist in a vacuum and they are all related.
Work Requested
Top reason, with a bullet, why a Top performer drops is because you’ve assumed their skills and interest apply in an area where they do not. Top performers are that way because they are able to apply a potent mixture of skill, interest and ego: I know this, I am interested in this, I want others to know I’m good at this.
Pull one of those three pillars and people start to falter. It is easy to see why someone who doesn’t know something might falter—new skill, new environment, and they can’t put it together quickly. Got it. If, I want others to know I’m good at this, departs then they’re fucked and getting them back to Top performer is exceedingly difficult. If someone truly doesn’t care, good luck convincing them to care.
I know this and I want others to know I’m good at this, but it doesn’t interest me, is challenging. It is the classic new manager. “They were a great project manager, so let’s have them manage the project managers!” only, the person does not have any interest in managing people. Worse, if they feel like they have to manage people in order to move up in the organization, they do it and you not only get a poor manager, but you lose them at their area of expertise! Double Whammy.
If you’re transparent with your people—and they’re transparent with you—you should know if this is the issue and if/how you can remedy it. It someone is truly uninterested in the work you’ve placed in front of them, make it temporary. There is a fundamental different between:
Hey, I know this isn’t your top choice, but we need you to do this because you’re the only one who has the skills we need—but it will be over at some point.
And
I need you to set this up and then get ready to hand this off to someone else in <time period>. I know it isn’t your top choice, but we need you to do it because of your skill set. It will only be for <time period> so let’s build in the hand-off from go.
The both declare up front that you know they don’t want to do this, but the first is open ended. The second is finite and it demonstrates that you’re working to make this realistically finite—not hand-wavey, sure, someday, finite.
Burnout
People who have been working a crapton of hours for a prolonged period are not going to function well. Burnout and stress are real and they will deplete, or even destroy, a Top performer.
Worse, the period of time where someone can be working a ton of hours varies by person and by a number of other factors. If someone is personally invested in a project or an outcome, they can and do work longer hours for a longer period of time. If their skill, interest and ego are engaged, they’ll burn hotter for longer. Again, pull any one of those three pillars and they burn quicker. Pull two—or three—and they will burn out in days or a week.
Related to that is further personal differences. Some people have no issue with a 60 hour week every now and then. Others find 41 hours to be anathema. Know your team individually.
Complacency
Insidious complacency can ruin anyone. If you’ve been told you’re great for a long enough period of time, you believe people and start to ease back. If you think your, good enough, is better than someone else’s, best effort, newsflash: you’re dropping.
Controlled Imposter Syndrome is your friend. It’s not that you suck or that you have no competencies: it’s that you never arrive. You have never, quote, Made It—capital M, capital I. There is always another achievement, another goal, another milestone. Your drive got you to the point where you cared about your drive—don’t give it up.
Personal Life
The aspect least open to help and most able to quickly devastate a Top performer is their personal life. It is also able to quickly propel someone to new heights.
My daughter is a two-time cancer survivor. She was first diagnosed at 11-months old. I absolutely ghosted on work for a few months when she was diagnosed. The second time we had at least an inkling about and I could plan—but I was still rather suddenly out of the office for 3 weeks, followed by multiple half-days.
When she was first diagnosed I was mid-transformation of a multi-million dollar team. I had been there less than a year and directly managed 12 people inside an AmLaw50 firm. I literally walked out on a Friday in January and walked back in sometime in April. This is the kind of behavior that can define and kill a reputation and a career. It did define me, but it also propelled me.
My team held it together for months without me. My manager stepped in and made sure I knew that work was a distant third priority—after my daughter and family. My company supported me in a thousand different meaningful ways. I’d like to think I’ve repaid that trust and compassion—individually and collectively—but I fear that is impossible.
Similar situations exist for employees going through a divorce, employees with a sick/dying parent or spouse or pet, or employees having serious financial problems. Employees having trouble conceiving children is devastating to that employee. If you’re focused on home life, you’re not focused on work. These are extreme examples, but even relatively minor issues – struggles with potty training, a bad breakup while dating—can have deleterious effects on performance.
Being a good manager in personal life situations is about listening and not inserting yourself any more than you’re welcome. You are not part of their family and you’re probably not part of their social circle. Listen. No, really, listen. Men, seriously, do not try and solve their problems and don’t offer advice. Just listen and understand. That is all you need and are invited to do.
——————————————-
Remember that these things are interconnected. Someone may experience burnout faster if their annoyed at their partner or dealing with a hormonal teenager or sick parent. Someone may find it hard to care about work when they’ve got ten things waiting for them at home.
Great management minimizes the time on the bottom and maximizes the time on top. Understand your people and you can help them achieve that goal. Understand your people and you can avoid putting them in bad situations or burning them out. Understand your people and let them understand you. Humanize yourself. Be vulnerable. It will serve you and it will serve them.