Pub. 4 Issue 1

12 www.glancda.org “I know I should probably get rid of the guy, but he’s been with me twenty-five years; he’s loyal.” If you’ve ever managed to whine out a lame version of this “he’s loyal” rationalization to justify your defense of mediocrity roll this publication up, hand it to the nearest person and ask them to smack you in the head with it. Frankly, if you dare fathom the perpetual cost and misery that accompanies keeping a “loyal’ non-performer you’d agree a simple whack on the head is getting off lightly. For any of us who have had access to a dictionary during the course of our lifetimes, there is no excuse for confusing a word like loyal with concepts like “seniority”, or “tenure”. The following three definitions may help you discover that people you’ve labeled “loyal” do indeed have seniority and tenure, but are far from being loyal employees: Seniority: status obtained as the result of a person's length of service. Tenure: the length of time in a position or office. Loyal: faithfulness to one’s duties and obligations. The truth about loyalty is found in its definition: “faithfulness to one’s duties and obligations”. This indicates that not only does the person show up to work, but he or she steps up while there and performs well. Based on this definition, you could also say that one of the most disloyal things someone can inflict on an organization providing their paychecks is to stop getting results. At the end of the day, to maintain a healthy organization loyalty must be assessed as thus: not solely by the amount of time someone puts in, but by what someone puts into the time; continued performance worthy of your organization. When I discuss this topic in my Up Your Business 2.0 Super Leadership Workshop the discomfort amongst attendees is palpable; especially from tenured employees representing their organization. Thus, I should also clarify something very important: if you have long-time employees, and they continue to perform well, they are your “A” players. You need to take good care of them, because you can’t really ask for more than performing consistently well over a long period of time. But, if you have to choose between performance and tradition; performance and sentimentalism; performance and old-time’s sake, you need to do what’s right for the entire team, your culture, standards, momentum, morale, personal credibility, and the customer experience and either get the “loyal” person better, or get a better person. If you’re still hung up on the “but he’s been with me X years” excuse, consider this: if a couple is married for forty years, an outsider might comment that the gentleman must be a loyal husband to have stayed married for so long to the same woman. But, if in the course of those forty years he was detached, indifferent, selfish, and had multiple affairs you’d probably change your assessment that he was loyal. The time he put in would be subordinate to the fact that the behaviors The “Loyal” Non-Performer BY DAVE ANDERSON, PRESIDENT OF LEARN TO LEAD