So your people aren’t performing to the potential you know they possess. You’ve had development planning meetings with them, provided feedback, and even invested in some skill-specific training, yet nothing is working. What is left to do, simply accept their mediocre performance or let them go?
Before making any rash decisions or resigning yourself to uninspired production, be sure to ask yourself one essential question…
Are the right people in the right jobs?
No on likes to think they are made for one type of work and ill-suited to another – we’ve been taught all our lives that with enough gumption and hard work we can accomplish any feat. And for those employees who have a burning desire to reach a certain goal, their success should be encouraged no matter how much they need to adjust their behavior to match the requirements of the role. 
Yet many workers find themselves in roles that require them to alter their latent behavior substantially without that burning desire to succeed behind them. Mid-level managers, account executives, and many other professionals find themselves in their current roles not by design but by the natural twists and turns of a career. These individuals carry on in their positions, working hard to adjust their behavior to their roles for no other reason than they just happened to end up there.
Such situations – which are more common than we like to admit – are examples of people being in the wrong jobs.
But what defines the “right person” in the “right job”?
Some criteria that can be used to measure this are:
- the individual’s desire/motivation to be successful in their current position
- the individual’s goal to continue to advance in this particular career track
- the individual’s level of satisfaction, fulfillment, and company dedication
- the individual’s behavior style matches modestly well with the supervisor assessment of the job
When you have the right people in the right jobs, things just “hum.” In our experience with companies around the world, one of the top issues we find is that people are not in the right jobs for them. This causes friction, lack of motivation, and in some cases even corporate resentment.
How do you get the right people in the right jobs? There are a variety of ways, but in our experience we have found that nothing works as well as using a Cleaver DISC profile. Our DISC profiles provide a comprehensive assessment of an individual’s latent and motivated behavior patterns that can be matched and compared to a supervisor’s interpretation of the role. You can learn more about the Cleaver DISC here, or contact a Cleaver Consultant today!
