Stop Penalizing Your High-Performers with Low-Performers' Failures
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Understanding the Impact on High-Performers
One of the most detrimental actions you can take for your top talent is to reward them with raises and recognition, while simultaneously increasing their workload due to the underperformance of their colleagues.
As alarming as it may sound, many business owners engage in this practice without realizing it.
The Gradual Erosion of Morale
This issue often develops gradually and subtly. High-performing employees might initially feel a rush of satisfaction from outperforming their peers and receiving public accolades. However, this feeling can quickly dissipate when they recognize that they're shouldering an increasing share of the workload, while their less productive teammates continue to receive the same compensation.
In many cases, business owners or leaders remain unaware of this dynamic—not out of indifference, but because the immediate financial gains and increased customer satisfaction obscure the underlying problems.
The Two Primary Causes of Performance Imbalance
In my recent consulting work, I've observed two specific issues that lead to high-performing employees expressing their frustration over consistently having to carry the weight of their less effective colleagues.
This scenario typically arises when a high achiever joins a team of average performers, or when a high performer is hired initially, but as the company expands, less competent hires are made out of necessity. The hope is that the top performer will inspire others, but more often than not, they find themselves overburdened and underappreciated.
In my coaching sessions, I often refer to this phenomenon as "The Burden of Excellence." What begins as a temporary issue due to rapid growth or a busy period often becomes a permanent state of affairs, leading to burnout among high performers.
Even worse, managers may avoid confronting the poor performance of their lower-tier employees, hoping the issue will resolve itself. Unfortunately, this rarely leads to positive outcomes, and the result can be the departure of your top talent or a significant decline in workplace culture.
Strategies for Improvement
To tackle this issue effectively, it's crucial to confront low performance directly. Most significant advancements in business occur after one or two difficult conversations.
If you lack key performance indicators (KPIs) or specific success metrics for each role, it's time to create them. These objective measurements can facilitate necessary conversations by removing personal bias and subjectivity.
When these metrics are combined with subjective 360-degree reviews from peers and supervisors, employees are left with a clear choice: acknowledge their shortcomings and work towards improvement, or exit the organization amicably.
Once the bottleneck is eliminated, growth can occur organically, allowing your top performers to unleash their full potential.
If you listen closely, you can almost hear an increase in your "Revenue per Employee" KPI!
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