conflict

Have you ever hired, managed, or worked with someone who was proficient at their job, a high performer, and maybe even a production leader, yet they just didn’t seem to be a cultural fit? While they may perform, they may lack core tenets and values of your organization. In the worst cases, they may lack integrity and may be actively undermining and sabotaging your business.

This virus is extremely dangerous and can infect an entire organization. Your other employees and team members will certainly be among the first to pick up on this infection. Just like an illness, they may start mirroring similar behavior and suddenly your top employees can become disengaged and your average employees become actively disengaged. Active disengagement is when your staff are actively working against your mission. This is the most sinister form of workplace theft, because your employees show up each day, oppose your vision, avoid doing the work they are paid to do, and undermine your organizational structure. Once the infection has taken hold of your employees, your clients and customers will undoubtedly notice. Commitments will be missed, the quality of care and service will diminish, and eventually they will leave.

The good news is that this can all be prevented with proper systems and processes. The most important first step, before even posting your next job vacancy, is to review your values with your executive leadership. Ensure they align with your vision for your business and with the spirit of your organization. Review your mission statement and ensure it clearly states who you serve, how you’ll serve them, and what you wish to accomplish. Then proudly display your mission and values to ensure they are known by everyone on your team.

Again, before you login to Indeed.com to post that job listing, lets ensure your house is clean. The next step is to audit the team you currently have in place. Using a tool like the People Analyzer™ will give you a quick means of assessing the cultural and job fitment of your team. In his book, Traction (2012), Gino Wickman describes using the People Analyzer™ to determine the fitment of each member of your team within your culture and their job.

In the People Analyzer™, you first list all of your people in the column to the left. Next, you fill in the headers of the next columns with your company core values. Once your values are identified, you label the final three columns with “Get it,” “Want it,” and “Capacity.” These final three measure job fitness.

Using a system of +, -, and +/-, identify which values are embodied by each person representing you and your company each day, when they show up. If they are strong proponents of a value, give them a plus, if they don’t embody or oppose a value, give them a minus, and if you can’t tell, give them a neutral marking. You determine the bar for fitment by values. It may be a percentage of values which may be met and there may be some that are deal-breakers. If one of your core values is honesty, it may be hard to keep employed someone who is dishonest, even if they embody every other value.

The final three columns will determine job fitment for each member of your team. This will require a clear job description and an organizational chart which defines the job’s impact within the organization. Each member should be evaluated against their job description to ensure they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity (GWC) to do it. Evaluate fitment against each of the three metrics and give a Yes or a No for each employee and their job. The GWC is non-negotiable. Even if the employee embodies all of the company’s highest values, they may still not be the right fit for their job. It’s time to either place them in a role where they will excel or let them go if such a role does not exist.

Don’t wait for justification or an incident to make terminations of employees who are not the right fit for your team and your business. It may already be too late by the time an excuse to let them go arises and your remaining employees may have already lost faith. Once you do the right thing, your supporters and best-aligned team members will respect you more and return to performing highly, since you showed them the respect of protecting their culture.

If you want to know more about the People Analyzer™, read Traction. If you want to download a copy of this tool to use yourself, click the button below. If you need help determining your core values and mission or in creating your organizational chart, request a free business assessment at the button below and I will get on a one-to-one call with you to help you gain clarity.