How To Handle A Low Mojo Teammate
There are two different models for handling teammates who are not performing optimally. I use these names:
- Post office model
- Corporate model
The first model assumes that everybody can learn to perform. All people are malleable and educable. They just need to be given opportunities to learn new skills. If someone isn’t experienced at a skill, that is something that they need to be given an opportunity to do. For example, if a person is unempathetic with customers, it is just a matter of not experiencing customer complaints. Once given an opportunity and perhaps some training, the employee will improve. This attitude leads to moving people around often so that they get a variety of experiences. This explains why you often experience surly Post Office employees at the service window..
The second model assumes people have natural talents, but not in every area. It is a manager’s job to figure out what these talents are. The manager should put each person in a position to succeed. This happens frequently in well run companies. People are assigned based on their gifts and strengths. There is almost no assumption that they can be changed. The entire psychological assessment idea (e.g., Myers-Briggs) is based on this premise. Once people’s strengths are identified, they fulfill their role and the whole performs better. People are happier and experience less stress doing the job at which they are good. Obviously, MojoDave prefers the second model.
There is support for the second model in the Good Book. Consider the first letter of St. Paul to the Corintinians, in which he said “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.”
Here is a story that reinforces the second model. When I was growing up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, we played football all the time. Any season of the year. Any implement, baseball, football, frisbee, two cups stuck together, anything we had, we used to play football. It was a cultural thing. My best friend’s family had 3 boys who were very good players. The older two played in college, and the youngest, my age, was a sprinter who played on several all-star teams. We played on a field near their house that was anything but level. It wasn’t rectangular and had little grass, but it was our field. Everyone played, no matter the age, gender, whatever. The better players, i.e., the ones with the most mojo, called the plays in the huddle. They assigned everyone a responsibility. Everyone. The smaller, weaker players were included and were usually blockers. However, occasionally they were used in screen passes. They were delighted to contribute in this way. It really fooled the defenses. Do you think any of them dropped the ball when given such an awesome responsibility? Not a chance. Remember, this was a town where parents taught their kids to catch a football at the earliest opportunity. What this taught me is that everyone has something to contribute. You just have to figure out what it is. Don’t ask for something they can’t do.
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