When Ignorance Isn't Bliss What do you do with an employee who is incompetent but can't see it?
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At first, Elizabeth McRae Smith, 37, couldn't put two andtwo together. But soon she suspected the truth: One of heremployees was hopelessly incompetent.
A pattern of typos and bad grammar was hurting Smith'sbusiness. "This person had incompetence in a number of areasthat are important to public relations and even caused someproblems with clients that I had to fix," says Smith, founderand CEO of The McRae Agency, a PR firm with six employees.
| "You just can't save some employeesfrom themselves. BIZ Experiencess can work too long trying to fixthings." |
She found that gentle reminders didn't work, so she startedamassing a paper trail of the employee's mistake-ladenprojects, e-mails and reports. Last summer, one year after theemployee was hired on at the 6-year-old San Francisco firm, shedecided on a performance review where she and another supervisorwould individually rank the employee on a number of skill sets,while the employee would rate herself. Smith was dumbfounded whenthe two sides compared notes. She and the supervisor thought thatimprovement was needed in every category, but the employee ratedherself as good or excellent in every category.
Chances are, you'll eventually have employees who ratethemselves as "above average" in a wide array ofabilities they clearly don't have. Maybe it's an employeewho thinks she's an outstanding public speaker but isn't, asecretary who fancies himself a writer but puts out horriblydisjointed memos, or a sales rep who greatly overestimates herability to close big deals.
But here's the rub: What you see as a glaring deficiency,these employees view as a strong competency. Smith's employeesaw herself as supremely qualified-if not destined-for a career inPR, but Smith saw a gaping set of obstacles the worker could notseem to grasp.
Sheer Incompetence
Had Smith seen the research of David Dunning, a psychologyprofessor at Cornell Universtiy in Ithaca, New York, shewouldn't have had to learn the hard way that there's asubset of people in the workplace who simply can't gauge theirown areas of incompetence. Dunning, who originally wanted to learnhow people know when they're performing poorly, has found thatpeople who do things spectacularly badly are often as confident intheir abilities as highly competent individuals.
In a series of studies, Dunning and his researchers found thatpeople who scored in the bottom 25 percent on humor, grammar andlogic tests consistently overestimated their performance andability. Although these people's test scores tended to put themin the 12th percentile, they saw themselves ranking around the 62ndpercentile-even after they were confronted with the entiregroup's test results.
Because these employees don't see their own incompetence,it's up to you to tell them. But how do you break it to anemployee that she's incompetent, especially if it's in herchosen profession?
Raising the Bar
It's easy to let the situation fester. But without feedback,incompetent employees overestimate themselves even more, accordingto Dunning. "These people need a strong external push,"he says. Meet privately with them, and be prepared for resistance."They will argue back with their positive qualities and whythey should keep doing a task," Dunning says.
You'll need to back up your arguments with concreteevidence. Show the employee examples of good work, and explain whatyou expect. Keep the focus on performance, set benchmarks over aspecific period of time, and use 360-degree feedback. Offertraining, too. If you have an employee who insists on writingcompany reports but lacks competency, explain why you can't usehim or her on the project and offer some training. "If youhave to give the project to someone else, explain that it's ahard decision and say 'This is what I want you to workon,' " Dunning says. "Opportunities for training areimportant."
These overconfident types, however, may not see the need fortraining. In fact, Frank Shipper, a management professor at thePerdue School of Business at Salisbury State University inSalisbury, Maryland, warns that incompetent employees who can'tsee their deficits may just lead you around in circles. "Evenwhen you're blunt, they won't see it," Shipper says."It all hinges on the employee's acceptance of theproblem." If all else fails, it may be better to cut yourlosses. "You just can't save some people from themselves.Entrepreneurs can work too long trying to fix things."
Smith's solution was a 45-day review period along withgrammar and computer classes at the company's expense, aproposal the employee found insulting. Instead, the employee wanteda raise, a personal assistant, a new computer and moreresponsibility. "In her mind, she was a great writer andcommunicator who had a college degree," Smith says. "Shesimply couldn't see the need to improve."
Not long after, the employee told Smith she was looking foranother job, and the two mutually agreed that it was time to partcompany. "It's sad," says Smith. "But at the endof the day, you have to make good business decisions for yourcustomers."
