Have you initiated a PIP on one of your reports? Did they improve and maintain their enhanced performance? So far, in close to 20 years of working in tech, I have not witnessed the first individual that survives a PIP.
Imagine a world where most PIP sections are there, but we remove the “if you don’t improve, we’ll let you go.” clause
I argue that removing the option to fire someone for performance reasons makes it so that we genuinely care for a successful outcome of any improvement plan.
Here is how this would look.
Goal settings
Most PIPs will come with a pre-determined set of goals already laid out for the individual.
In my opinion, this removes the power of commitment from the individual, so instead, I suggest you present a set of the underperforming areas with information to back up your claims and then ask them to define specific goals to improve in those areas.
Action items
After setting goals, the next step is to work on action items planned to get to the goals.
Let’s say one of the goals is to improve communication.
Specific action items could be
- Write up a standup update daily at nine AM
- Set a reminder five minutes before a meeting to read ahead and participate in meeting conversations
- Set aside one hour weekly to write up about technical decisions taken during the week
This should be a collaborative exercise where both of you work on a set of actions that will get you closer to the goals you have set.
Accountability
Lastly, we’ll make sure that we have a way to show progress on the actions and the goals.
Following the example above, to improve communication well be writing standup updates daily.
To hold us accountable, we can report weekly on the number of standup reports completed. We can further survey the team on how they feel about the individual’s communication practices.
Summary
PIPs don’t have the goal of improving performance. Instead, they aim at driving someone out of the company.
By constraining ourselves by removing the option to fire for performance reasons, we change the process so that the goal is to see improvement truly.
We get there by working together to set up goals, the actions to achieve them, and ways to measure our progress.
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