A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

Chapter 28. OK. So, You’re Failing

Years ago at Borland. My first real gig. I was poached from an internship into a full-time QA gig. When I accepted the offer, they sent me a box of Borland swag, T-shirts, notebooks, and pens. I was elated. No more hourly wages; I was full time.

Six months in, my manager sat me down at her desk and slid a piece of paper over. She was quiet and, in hindsight, nervous. I read the paper and realized she was documenting how I had failed at my job. She asked me to sign the piece of paper I’d barely read.

I did. Next to my signature was a date. It wasn’t that day; it was 90 days from that day.

Disclaimers

A few years back, I wrote a piece about performance management. It was entirely for managers. This chapter is for the individual contributor on a performance plan, but I need to set three initial conditions to make it helpful.

First, for this chapter’s sake, we assume your manager intends to address your performance issue. There are bad managers who use performance management not to address a performance issue but to let go of an employee as quickly as possible. Sorry. These managers suck. 

Second, I’m assuming you’re in a fixable situation. You are in a job you can do, and through a combination of your and your manager’s focused effort, it is possible to succeed.

Third, and perhaps most confusing, after this paragraph I adopt the perspective of the person receiving the performance plan. I do this because while you are responsible for defining and ...