The one shift that changed how we evaluated “under-performers” on our teams

The risk and reward of hiring can make or break the effectiveness and culture of your team. A hiring misstep can have an unrecoverable impact on team performance. 

We all have them, the puzzle piece that just didn’t fit. Those hires that had “so much potential” but didn’t quite hit the mark. Those that we inherited from another leader, who couldn’t speak highly enough about them, but we just couldn’t find synergy. 

Being twins and leaders in the same fast growing organization, we had a lot of great discussions around what worked and what didn’t. We have both hired hundreds, if not thousands, of people over our tenures. The ones we are talking about are the ones we hired as superstars but unknowingly put them into a role that restricted their unique talents and silenced their communication style. Not on purpose, it was always based on the needs of the business at the time, but misplaced all the same.   

What often looked like underperformance was actually misplaced talent. 

What if there are no bad hires, just misplacements? What if the team member wasn’t the problem, what if their brilliance didn’t match the role they were hired into? What if our communication gap was the issue, not their performance?

The one shift we made was to ask a better question. We stopped asking: “Why isn’t this person performing?” and started asking: “What is their brilliance? Where would they perform or succeed the most?” And then if possible, we worked to help get them there. 

That question shift alone transforms how you lead people.

Instead of trying to fix weaknesses, you start aligning to their strengths. That’s when surprising things happen. The quiet over analyzer failing in sales becomes the most powerful strategist in sales operations. The excessively process driven customer service rep becomes the most requested project manager in operations. The overly detailed biz dev rep becomes a technical genius on your implementation team.

We saw it happen over and over. We wish we had understood this sooner, and we would have saved more of the brilliant team members we lost over the years. Just because our style or their role wasn’t the right fit for them, did not mean they weren’t a superstar for another leader. 

It is important to address it early. Don't wait until they are on a performance plan. Have the conversations early enough to know your own leadership style so you can align your leadership and communication with their unique design. Same person, different placement, completely different outcome.

Have you ever had a misplaced superstar... or been one yourself?