You’re a startup on your way. You are at that magic 50+ employee level at which you start to pay attention to things like Performance Appraisal. With that level of staffing, you will find out that when the tide goes out, some folks have been swimming naked — meaning not everybody is a super star.

Sure, you remember this — click on to see larger:

Down at the bottom of this graphic is the block titled “Performance Appraisal” about which we have spoken before.

Performance Appraisal As Inspiration And Motivation

Which brings me to the BIG QUESTION: What does the rater do when the person being evaluated has not had a great performance?

The answer is this: you come up with a PLAN to reverse the slide, to get the employee back on the upward trend to regain their footing.

I know some of y’all are not doing Performance Appraisals. I know that, but play along.

You make a detailed ten point plan with measurable objectives to improve performance. You keep score on those objectives. People want to do a good job, but sometimes you have to help them. What you do not do is — HOPE it gets better by itself.

Hope is not a strategy.

I thought you needed to know that. Look at that graphic. That’s what you learn when you’re a CEO for 33 years. It is how business actually works. You did not invent sex or business — they have both been around for a long time.

Talent is not endless or cheap. You have to manage it. When you have an employee who is not hitting his marks, you make a PLAN because it is expensive and disruptive to keep buying new dishes because they get a little soiled. It has an impact on the culture. It sucks the energy and life out of a company to churn personnel.

Make a PLAN.

You were smart enough to start a company, raise money, get traction, that MVP thing — now manage the talent.

You  got this.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car, but boy oh boy did I manage a lot of talent.