I Decided He Wasn't Worth the Investment: I Was Wrong.

I'm going to tell you something that's hard to admit when you do what I do for a living.

When I first started out as a leader, I gave up on someone.

They had been a Top performer before, someone the team relied on and rallied around when times were tough. Then came the decline.

Their attitude became consistently off, their performance started slipping, and their team investment took a nosedive.

I watched the decline happen in real time, and instead of digging in, instead of investing the time to understand what was happening, I made a decision.

I wrote him off.

Not formally; I didn't fire him, didn't document anything. I just stopped trying. Stopped expecting a turnaround. Started managing around him instead of managing him.

If you lead people, you know exactly what that looks like. (maybe you've even done it too.)

Then, someone else in the organization, decided to spend time with that leader.

They walked alongside him, helped him see how what he was doing was affecting his team, where the gaps were, and what was possible.

Then, quite quickly, that leader turned it around.

He became one of the best managers in the organization.

And I had to sit with the fact that the only reason he almost didn't was me: my judgment, my impatience, my assumption that I could see who was worth it and who wasn't, based purely on instinct.

Most leaders think accountability means identifying who's performing and who isn't. It does, but the harder accountability is on the leader: how much did YOU invest before you decided?

It’s why I created the 3 C’s Framework.

The 3 C's, (Committed, Capable, Coachable) aren't just a filter to sort people out. They're also a diagnostic to figure out what someone needs. If they're coachable but struggling, the questions change.

Are you coaching, or have you already made up your mind?

Are you developing, or just managing around the problem and hoping it resolves itself?

Are you leading, or are you labeling?

Most importantly, who on your team have you already written off?

What if you're wrong?

What if the problem isn't their potential, but that no one has talent the time to truly walk alongside them yet?

If you have a team member that you’re close to giving up on, reach out to me.

We can work together to run through the Three C’s Framework. One key shift in how you coach someone can change everything.

Lead Boldly,

~MW