Should leaders judge employees on results above all else?
Just as a tree bears fruit, certain behaviors drive certain results. In the workplace, a person’s actions constitute the tree, while the outcomes are the fruit. However, not all fruit is sweet. Some may be undesirable, symbolic of unacceptable outcomes. Leadership has the task of judging employees based on both their behaviors and their outcomes—and balancing the two in a judicious manner can be a delicate task.
Outcomes are non-debatable: bad fruit is bad fruit
Say you have a meeting scheduled with an employee for 9 a.m. every day of the week. On Monday, the employee comes in late. They explain, “There was a huge pileup on the highway.” You’re simply relieved they aren’t hurt. The meeting continues.
On Tuesday, 9 a.m. comes around, and the employee is late again. When they arrive, they explain: “My alarm didn’t go off.” These things happen. The meeting continues.
On Wednesday, the employee is late yet again. This time they tell you, “I washed my hair this morning and it was minus 10 outside, so I didn’t want to go out with wet hair, and my hairdryer was broken, so it took longer than usual to dry and…”
Every day, there’s an excuse. The excuses may be valid. However, the fact remains: the employee is consistently late. That is the unacceptable fruit they are bringing to the meeting.
As a leader, you might judge the employee based solely on that fruit. The fruit, the actual outcome, is beyond debate. The employee was late, and that’s a fact. You might say, “I don’t care that they have reasons. They’re always late. The reasons are irrelevant.” And that’s that.
Leaders should look at the fruit first and foremost. That “fruit” could be many things. Punctuality is just one example. The fruit could be new leads generated or sales targets met. Any number of key performance indicators (KPIs) can signify fruit.
Now, judging employees based only on the fruit of their labor is direct and clear. It’s also ruthless. Because if you have a tree that isn’t bearing the fruit you planted it for, odds are you’re going to cut it down to make room for a new tree that does bear fruit.
However, leaders should also factor in the intentions that led to that fruit in the first place.
Intentions and weight of evidence likewise require consideration
If you don’t factor in intention when judging employees, you are not getting the whole picture. In the example above, the employee showing up late for work regularly didn’t intend to be delayed. There was always a reason for their tardiness. While the fruit (being late) is an unquestionable component when assessing that employee, it’s not the only one. You must add intention to the assessment.
However, adding intention doesn’t change the outcome. What’s more, intention and outcome can be vastly at odds. That’s why leaders should consider a third component: weight of evidence. Say I take a basket and go apple-picking. I try one tree and it only has a few apples hanging on it, not nearly enough to fill up my basket. I go to another tree, and it’s full of apples, so I’m able to fill my basket completely.
Both trees produce apples. However, one produces significantly more. In working terms, we might say that the second tree has demonstrated greater productivity. The weight of evidence – the amount of the fruit produced – is much greater for the second tree.
Judging the tree as a whole: outcomes, intentions, weight of evidence
For leadership, great care is required when assessing these three factors: the outcome, the intention, and the weight of evidence. Coming back to the perpetually tardy employee. Yes, they were consistently late. That’s not up for debate. However, the employee’s intentions were not bad. They weren’t showing up late to be malicious. They encountered a freak accident (the pileup) and, beyond that, they appear to have poor time management skills.
As the leader, you might break it down thusly: “The weight of evidence suggests that this employee is going to be late. However, they also have good intentions. So, I will judge them not as a person who intends to be late, but as a person who is inept at managing their time.”
This doesn’t change the fact that the fruit is bad. Every leader will agree that having someone show up late for meetings consistently makes for pretty sour fruit. However, it also means you don’t have to chop down the whole tree and get rid of the employee entirely. There is still a possibility to salvage them.
As the leader, you might sit down with that employee to talk about time management. You might suggest to them, “Set a second alarm,” or “Wash your hair at night, not in the morning.” Since their intentions are good, they will presumably want to address the issue and deliver a sweeter fruit.
This goes the other way, too. Say an employee simply comes in late with no excuse, again and again, because they simply don’t care. They are likewise bringing you rotten fruit—and the intentions are rotten, too. This isn’t a situation leadership can fix. It may be time to chop that tree down.
Good intentions still don’t justify bad fruit. However, by understanding intentions and looking at the weight of evidence as a whole, leaders can better judge how to deal with the consequences of bad fruit when it’s handed to them.