Let Them Go or Keep Drowning? A Third Option for Stuck Staff
"I think I'm going to have to fire them or keep drowning in extra work. I don't feel good about it, but it doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do."
This is such a rough spot to be in when you're managing an underperforming employee at a nonprofit. I've been on both sides of it. As a nonprofit manager really trying to get a staff person I like and appreciate to do the work I know they're capable of but haven't seen from them consistently. As a staff person, with a frustrated manager whose expectations I just can't seem to quite meet.
Whenever folks bring this type of concern into coaching, I feel it in my gut. I coach Directors and Managers at justice-centered nonprofits, social enterprises, and co-ops who are working to ensure they lead with their values. They don't want to terminate their staff. They want to keep them, and they can't keep shouldering the work, or having the team shoulder it, when things aren't delivered the way they need.
They've reached out to their HR or People & Ops folks, they've had conversations with the direct report and maybe their own supervisor, but there's been no sustained change. Usually, by the time it gets to me, the manager is exhausted and out of options, the team is taxed and fed up, and often the individual is disappointed and confused. It feels like they either have to keep the person and just hope something changes with no evidence that's possible or they have to terminate the person and hold down the work until they can bring someone else on.
Neither of those is an ideal solution. They're a false binary. And as a non-binary person myself, I'm not about that life. I'm always looking for other possibilities and third options.
The one I've found the most beneficial is shifting the responsibility for addressing the gaps in this person's work to them. Often, folks provide feedback without transparency on impact and offer solutions that aren't generated by the staff person who then needs to implement them. But when you're told to implement a solution you didn't come up with for a problem whose impact you don't understand, there's bound to be some disconnect.
Over time, I practiced different things and shared the lessons from those practices with the folks I was coaching. That eventually took shape as the Collaborative Accountability Conversation.
The supervisor uses the process to reflect beforehand, identifying the specifics that need to be shared and acknowledging any judgments or biases that might be shaping their feedback. They get very specific about what needs to change and how they can support.
The staff person prepares before the accountability conversation with guiding questions that help them reflect on what they understand about the situation, the challenges and obstacles they're navigating, and what power they have to change things.
During the conversation, they're both guided to show up with key things that make offering and receiving feedback more successful. They come to agreements about what happens next, led by the direct report, with clear benchmarks and check-in times to assess if the changes are going well and having the desired impact.
This approach is transformative because it prioritizes shared responsibility and invites the person whose work is in question to lead the solutioning, and that shift is the thing that moves what they do from short-term change to long-term shifts.
I love it when, a month or two out, I'm hearing from that manager, "Omg, they're meeting deliverables consistently, and I feel like I can rely on them in a new way. This is what I was excited about when I hired them."
What happens for you when you own finding and implementing solutions to issues that you sit at the center of?
If you're holding a staff situation like this right now, book a 30-minute vibe check. We'll talk through what's going on, see if we're a fit, and if so, talk next steps and pricing.
