Beth Axelrod

Helen Handfield-Jones

Ed Michaels

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">The Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
 How to sustain a 23% annual shareholder return? Push your growth rate from 4% to 10% in one year? Triple your market capitalization in three years?
 Clothing retailer The Limited, SunTrust Banks, and high-tech firm PerkinElmer, respectively, accomplished these feats by aggressively replacing their C players—people delivering barely acceptable results—with A and B performers.
 C players’ mediocre performance pulls down their company’s performance by:
 <ul>
 <li>blocking talented employees’ advancement,</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>calling their bosses’ judgment into question,</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>encouraging a C-player mentality in others, and</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>repelling valuable people.</li>
 </ul>
 Confronting these folks is painful. Fear of litigation, or the belief that an organization should invest indefinitely in people, can further stymie the process.
 But to continuously strengthen your firm’s talent pool, you must confront them. By improving—or removing—C performers, you boost company morale and performance. And since letting people languish in a job where they’re not respected only hurts them, moving C players up or out may even help them.
 The key? Use an iron hand—a disciplined process—clothed in a velvet glove—fairness and respect for these employees.
 The Idea in Practice
 <h2>The Iron Hand</h2>
 Use this disciplined process (conducted at least annually during division talent-review meetings) to regularly remove low performers from leadership positions:
 1. Identify C performers.
 <ul>
 <li>For each position, define goals, desired skills, and behaviors consistent with company performance goals.</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>Establish a simple performance-level rating system—e.g., A, B, and C.</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>Distribute people across the ratings. To ease the process, include 3+ senior managers in the discussions, and encourage robust debate about the performance improvements the company needs. Gather multiple viewpoints: Use 360-degree feedback, self-assessments, and interviews with subordinates. If managers balk, remind them of the objective: to continuously upgrade the talent pool, raising everyone’s game.</li>
 </ul>
 2. Agree on action plans.
 <ul>
 <li>For each person, ask questions such as: “Does he want to improve? How much warning has he already received? Does he have valued skills?”</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>Select one of these actions: Improve his performance to at least a B; move him to a better-suited job; or fire him.</li>
 </ul>
 3. Hold managers accountable. Require managers to implement action plans within 6 to 12 months. Frequent, casual inquiries, advice and encouragement, and formal reviews or tracking systems reinforce the importance of talent management. Example:&nbsp; 
 SunTrust Banks bases 20% of bank heads’ bonuses on how well they meet talent-building goals stipulated in their annual reviews—which include objectives for managing low performers. 
 <h2>The Velvet Glove</h2>
 Treat C players with fairness and respect:
 Deliver candid feedback regularly. Tell C managers about their strengths and weaknesses. Explain how they must improve—in writing during performance reviews and informally throughout the year. Termination shouldn’t be a surprise.
 Coach. Articulate specific goals and timelines for boosting performance.
 Provide generous separation support. Besides money, offer outplacement services, counsel and job leads, a job-search office, and secretarial support. You’ll lessen the financial hardship, anger, and legal risks that firing can raise—and help C players exit with dignity.
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief>Any seasoned executive would agree: The quality of a business’s pool of managerial talent is a critical driver of its ongoing success. Yet very few organizations have a rigorous and consistent approach for managing that talent. Most companies struggle with even the fundamental task of assessing the relative performance of their people. And they are worse still at taking appropriate actions based on such assessments.

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A New Game Plan For C Players

Winning the war for talent isn’t just about recruiting and retaining people. You’ve got to invest in A performers, raise the game of B performers, and—perhaps most difficult of all—deal decisively with C performers.

A New Game Plan For C Players

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