We all get frustrated in our business from time to time. I mean, we are human after all and business isn’t always easy. Today I’m going to share a personal frustration I have felt off and on throughout my career that you may be facing right now as well. And I’m going to empower you to fix it. Today I’m empowering you to stop wasting time on someone else’s work or their drama.
That sentence speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Wow. We spend so much time working on our team members, helping them develop and grow and progress. Sometimes we get blinded by the fact that they aren’t growing or progressing and we make excuses for them. I have always been a firm believer in the idea of: If I have to do your job, I don’t need you.
Maybe that’s a bit direct, but it’s true. When I have people constantly coming to me to ask me questions that they are simply too lazy to answer, I have the wrong person on my team.
The problem is that most of us question if we should let them go, especially if we are the ones who hired them. We get so frustrated by their behavior. Beyond frustrated actually. And we tell ourselves that that person just can’t stay! “I’m having a direct conversation with them tomorrow!” Then they have a good conversation with us, or they start to show ownership and improvement, and we want to give them another chance. It happens to all of us.
But where my frustration lies is in the fact that I actually have to have the conversation in the first place. I’m just being honest here. I can be PC and say “it’s an honor to have the responsibility of developing someone.” And while that’s always true, sometimes it’s just crappy that all of the hard conversations fall on us. And so the frustration you feel, or at least the frustration I feel in those moments, is that this person has let me down. I counted on them to be what they committed to being when I interviewed them and offered them the job. The fact that they aren’t delivering to that is just a letdown. Instead of being a win for the company, now there is a problem I have to fix.
The other scenario I find equally as frustrating is if someone is creating drama. Be it drama from gossip or just instigating issues between two teams. I don’t have the time for that. Not because “my time is more valuable than anyone else’s.” No. It’s because when I’m working, my time is dedicated to serving my clients to the best of my ability. And if you are taking my focus away from those I am serving to focus on drama, I get frustrated.
We are all adults. We all know how to be respectful, not be passive-aggressive, not act like we are better than anyone else, and have the right to demand solid performance from our peers. When drama is created just because someone isn’t emotionally mature enough to work through issues any other way, I feel like that’s a disservice to our clients.
Maybe you feel the same way. May you have had to deal with the frustration of doing someone else’s work or dealing with their drama. I would tell you that luckily, I don’t have these issues at Legend. But I have faced them in my past career and once you experience it, you hire differently, you interview differently, and you immediately resolve those issues vs. letting them linger.
If you are in a situation like this right now, my advice is to have an honest conversation, level set on expectations, and if it doesn’t resolve, follow your discipline process. You are busy and your time is valuable, not to mention your customers and clients deserve the best.
Be Legendary!