The cost of poor performance at senior levels

So often you hear people telling you that the middle levels of management are the most skilled and the people at the top 'won't even come on the courses'?

Here’s why I think you get these problems:

1. Those in top jobs are often motivated by money and power (but not necessarily in that order) and so don't care at all about 'people'.
2. The job has grown and the individual has not
3. The top people have no idea how bad they are and are too afraid/proud/arrogant to find out (and no one will tell them)
4. The promotion/recruitment processes for people at these levels are very poor or non-existent

So what can we do about it?

What Motivates Them?

You need to work out what’s important to the people at the top and focus on that.

Let them know:

• How much money they are losing 
• How much more money they could make if they did them differently

This can be hard if you think people should develop themselves for the sake of it, or simply because it’s the right thing to do.

Cost of Poor Performers at Senior Levels

The higher up you are, the greater the impact of your mistakes. When you are lower down, if you do something wrong people don’t seem slow to come forward and tell you about it. They make a big thing of it and bring it up in your appraisal.

When you are very senior, you often seem to end up being promoted.

Isn’t it time we started paying more attention to performance at the top and to how we recruit these people?

Big Rewards for Improvement

The other side of the coin is that improvements at the top can have a huge positive impact. So if you want to get some really big improvements you need to start there.

For more help with this get my booklet

How To Deal With Poor Performance