The Statement: “That’s Just Bob Being Bob."
Have you ever heard this statement before, or worse yet, have you ever said those words yourself? I know I have certainly heard those words in every scenario, from work to athletics to family, and my emotional response to those words has ranged from frustration, consternation, disgust to despair.
What does this have to do with Performance Review? Since many of you are in performance review season, consider if you have an employee that you can associate with this statement, “That’s just Bob being Bob”. The situation that causes this statement doesn’t live in organizational isolation. Let’s take a serious look at the negative organizational impacts in the workplace of this statement and the underlying situation.
Here’s a recent and very real situation I witnessed in a store that provides a customer-related service. I’m sure we have all experienced a situation like this in the workplace. As you read through this situation, think about all possible resulting organizational impacts. As a manager, if you have one of these employees/situations, the performance review process is the perfect time to identify this person and set up a development plan to correct the situation, one way or another!
The Situation: Customer Trying to Place an Order
The Actors: The first provider, the second provider, and the customer.
The Fallout
While one employee like Bob may not appear, on the surface, to cause big problems, there are very real negative organizational impacts to saying, “That’s Bob just being Bob”. What’s wrong with this picture? Here is the damage one underperforming employee can cause in time, morale, productivity, and revenue.
One Bad Employee and So Many Impacts
Managers, as you go through the performance review process, if you have even one Bob on your team, please fix this employee. It’s just not fair to anyone else who has the misfortune to have to deal with him. It may be hard, but that is management's responsibility, especially during this performance
review period.
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