Why Your Team Is Filled With Underperformers

and how you can turn them into superstars

AuthorAuthor

Oluwaseun Aladetoyinbo & Ayodeji Faleye
March 30, 2023

March 30th, 2023.

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Hi 👋

It's not uncommon to find leaders whine about their team members' performance. In my opinion, there are really just two types of teams - Those who are performing really well because they know what to do and those who just don't get it!

Today's edition will be exploring why you have the latter category on your team.

In Today’s Edition

  • Why Your Team Is Filled With Underperformers

  • 10x Your Employee Engagement Using These Power Tips

  • Tech Startups Vs Open AI - A Conflict Of The Colossal

  • A Practical Guide On How GPT-4 Can Save Founders Hours Each Week

Why Your Team Is Filled With Underperformers

Allow me to begin on this note: the concept of an "underperformer" is a misnomer.

Instead, there are employees who may be facing challenges with a particular task or project. Using the term "underperformer" is problematic as it creates an artificial dichotomy between employees: those who always excel and those who are unreliable due to their poor performance. If this were true, it would be easy to identify low-performing candidates during the hiring process and avoid hiring them. However, this oversimplifies the reality of the situation.

When you decided to bring a candidate on board, it is likely you observed qualities that convinced you of their potential to contribute to your team, following a thorough recruitment process. So, why do they end up not meeting up with expectations?

1. A Poor Onboarding Process

When you decided to bring a candidate on board, it is likely you observed qualities that convinced you of their potential to contribute to your team, following a thorough recruitment process. So, why do they end up not meeting up with expectations?

Onboarding is vital in helping newly hired employees understand what is expected of them, and the pattern of execution to follow. When this is not effectively communicated by the leader or poorly assimilated by the employee, there's a disconnect - and they either perform poorly or get caught up doing something completely different from what they should be doing.

Onboarding is not a process to be rushed. Consider a person just moving to a new environment. It takes a while to settle in, familiarize with the environment before getting comfortable enough to take another person around.

Vague communication is a performance killer. You shouldn't expect the best output from what was not carefully inputted.

2. Competency - Expectation Mismatch

Thorough knowledge of a job expectation is key before putting out that job ad. I have seen many instances where salespeople are hired into Business Development Roles and then queried for not hitting growth targets.

The knowledge gap does not just exist in Business Development but cuts across all fields.

Employees look out for jobs with keywords stating their key competencies only to get in and the expectations are miles apart from their current capacity.

While every role can be learned, are you willing to give them the time, and guidance to figure things out and grow into the role? Or did you just make the hire because you needed a quick fix and now you're stuck with an underperformer who you thought was promising before hiring?

3. Ineffective Leadership

So you're great at your job, doing amazing, making big moves and now you've been assigned to lead others to do the same - however you found yourself in a leadership position, the key skill you primarily require for success is people management which unfortunately is not common information you find loitering the internet.

Managing people is hard and I won't even sugarcoat it because I've had my fair share. Don't forget that you still have your own job to do, being a leader doesn't cancel your job description it only adds to it.

Building effective leadership is a walkover with AMI's Management Development Programme. The Programme is highly practical and comprehensive and aims at helping your team leaders and middle-level managers develop the skills they need to lead with confidence, drive performance, and inspire their team to achieve their full potential.

Now, how can you harness your team's current ability to improve performance and transform the poorest performers into superstars?

I'll be spilling the beans in the next edition of the WorkShift Weekly… so look out for it! 😉

How did you find today's piece? You know I always love to have your feedback

SPECIAL FEATURE

Boost Your Team's Performance with Expert Management Techniques

Looking to take your management skills to the next level?

AMI's Management Development Programme is the perfect opportunity to empower yourself and your team for new heights.

Over the course of this comprehensive 6-month program, you'll learn from expert coaches and mentors as you develop the skills you need to lead with confidence, drive performance, and inspire your team to achieve their full potential.

CORPORATE CULTURE AND TEAMS

10X Your Employee Engagement Using These Power Tips

It cannot be overemphasized that the success of every organization is largely dependent on its human components. For your business organization to be profitable, your employees must be committed to giving their all toward the growth and success of the company and by fostering employee engagement, you can secure the commitment of your employees, thus ensuring the long-term growth and success of your organization.

TRENDING

We got Featured!

We're changing the narrative in the recruitment industry!

At CareerBuddy, we recently launched our subscription-based recruitment service directed at fast-growing startups across Africa. With this latest hiring service, medium-sized businesses and startups with opportunities to grow can get access to top talents, providing a mutually beneficial relationship for all.

AS SEEN ON TWITTER

Tech Startups Vs Open AI - A conflict of the colossal  

Twitter has become a school with endless resources, every week I will be sharing useful tweets that will be beneficial to you as you continue to build amazing products. Click on the images to view the thread.

FROM THE LEADER’S LIBRARY

A Practical Guide on How GPT-4 Can Save Founders Hours Each Week

As founders, we typically want to focus on the problems (so we can fix them), and while there are a ton of Twitter threads about GPT-4, most are full of examples that aren’t super actionable, hence why this post is all about how founders can specifically use GPT-4 to save time or money.

MEME OF THE WEEK

AI TOOLS OF THE WEEK

AI tools you should be using to make your work easier

  • Voxwave AI - Win more business with AI-driven lead gen

  • Monica - Personal Al assistant for effortless chatting and copywriting.

  • Loopin AI - Turn your meetings into workspaces where your whole team can collaborate and access talking points, notes, and next steps in one place.

  • MagicForm - Increase your conversions 20-40+% by hiring and training an AI that's on a mission to convert your website visitors into eager customers through 24/7 live chat

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them."

John Maxwell

ABOUT CAREERBUDDY

Hire Smarter, Not Harder

At CareerBuddy, we make hiring seamless for fast-growing companies, we pride ourselves on knowing the best people that will excel in a Startup. With a candidate retention rate of 90.3%, it is safe to say “we are the best in the game for Startup hiring in Africa”.

We have worked with our partners to hire both for Technical and Non-Technical roles, we have also helped them with expansion in Africa. Some of our clients include Bamboo Invest, Helium Health, Cassbana, Cadana, Fincra, CrowdForce, Casava, TeamApt, Sabi, etc.

Are you hiring at the moment? Contact us