Submitted by karatejon on
in
Forums
I'm not completely new to management, but I am new in my current position and I'm new to Manager-Tools. That being said, here's what I've got going on. I've got two people that I just don't know what to do with.
One of my employees is an extreme perfectionist. He's a perfectionist to the point that it becomes debilitating for him and the amount of work and his timelines suffer from it because he never delivers anything. He's got a great attitude and his intent is spot-on, deliver the customer something perfect. But he obsesses about the minutia and rewrites things over and over to get the "optimal" way of accomplishing the task. I'd appreciate some advice on how to manage him.
The other employee that I inherited, that I'm concerned about, is also someone with an outstanding attitude. I just don't think that she and her role are cut out for each other. It's a data entry role, and she's more sales-minded than data entry-minded, if you know what I mean. She's great, but not at what I need her to do. She really needs the job, so that complicates things further. I've spoken to her, and laid out my expectations and what I require of her position. Among her peers, though, she's just not up to par. She makes more mistakes, takes longer to return phone calls, has more beginner questions, etc., than the rest of her peers. My predecessor had put her on a performance improvement plan shortly before I started in this position, that I had to finish up. I'd appreciate some pointers on how to effectively work with her, as well.
Thanks.
Trinity Can Help
Welcome to the forums! I hope that you can see how helpful this community can be.
Looking at your situation, here's what I'd recommend. Start with the trinity. If you don't know what I'm talking about with that, you can see it in the Map of the Universe section (under the Podcasts dropdown menu). In the Map of the Universe there is a Trinity segment and you can see how to roll out the trinity. Part of rolling that out will include feedback and coaching. I think that a combination of those will help you with these two employees.
Looking at your first difficult employee I would recommend using coaching to help him understand that meeting the deadline is the first priority. If he has extra time before the deadline, then he can spruse it up as much as he would like. But once the deadline is there, he needs to turn in the data even if he needs to have additional caveats and list assumptions. Then you can help him become more effective and efficient as he looks at improving the level of work that arrives on the day of the deadline.
The second employee is more difficult. You can continue to work through coaching and have as much training with other data entry employees as possible to help her learn how others catch those same errors. That is what you can do for her current position, but that doesn't guarantee success within a position that isn't a fit for the employee. I hope that she can succeed, but if not, you can start to look at employement opportunities that match her personality within the company. If that doesn't work, then you may want to start helping her prepare her resume and give her a letter of recommendation outlining her skills so that she can hopefully find an external opportunity that better fits her.
Best,
mmcconkie