How an employee feels about their job determines how hard they work to get results.
Customer Journey Series: Jim
This article is part of a customer journey series following “Jim,” a VP of Research and Development in a multi-national pharma company navigating shifting organizational demands, rapid leadership changes, and pressure to adapt and keep his team functioning.
His journey explores leadership presence, empathy, decision making, managing low performers, and helping talented employees grow.
Each post explores a real coaching conversation or leadership challenge from that journey.
This is the third post in Jim’s series.
Jim came to a session in early December thinking about performance reviews. He had two low performers. Today, we talked about Julie.
“My manager, Charlie, and I have gone back and forth on Julie, who has been struggling. We have been discussing whether to list her as meeting or as partially meeting expectations.”
Julie is a very accomplished scientist. She was trained as a medical doctor in China and came to the US to do post-doc research. She joined the company before Jim did, transitioned from clinical to research, and actually, she did Jim’s on boarding. Jim has a lot of respect for her.
Julie and Jim were peers at first. Then, when Jim was promoted 2 years ago, Julie became part of his team. She was easy to work with. Often in 1:1s, we just chatted about weekends and family. Julie was great as a personal friend and as a technician.
At the beginning of this year, however, the senior leader on our team retired, and Julie’s performance changed. He was Julie’s mentor and lead on a project she was close to, so since he left, she has felt that she’s not valued as much as before.
Jim interrupted his story here to reflect. “It’s interesting how much that human connection means to so many people. The human connection is really a big part of why we work, how we work, and the results we are willing to get.”
He continued on about Julie. At that time, she was still on a long-term project which was measuring results five or more years down the line. Suddenly, she felt like she had lost the biggest sponsor who believed in the value of the project. Her motivation has been slipping all year.
This year, Julie has been doing the bare minimum in the lab. Jim didn’t see her being proactive in leading her team in the lab or motivating them.
A couple months ago, we had directed them to wrap up the project and report deliverables. If there are more deliverables ahead, we asked her to open it as a new project.
This was a directive from corporate. It’s not that they don’t want long-term projects, it’s just that they have to show milestones and communicate success and knowledge along the way. You can frame new projects for ongoing research.
But Julie didn’t like working this way. She reluctantly wrote up some promising results she had so far. Jim told her it was great and asked her for a rough draft of the new project for ongoing research and a projected budget. Julie dragged her feet and missed the deadline to get her funding included on the budget.
“It’s not easy when initiatives come down from global and we need to help people adapt and change. Some people adapt more quickly, and others get stuck.”
Also, he made a point about fairness. “The reality is that we are all competing for resources globally, so you really have to be ahead on things to get your budget approved.”
Julie also had some health complications and between that and her former mentor leaving, she had not found the right energy at work. She was still waiting for two clinical trials to finish, but they weren’t slated to be done till next year. She just said, “Sometimes effective treatment takes time.”
“So here is my dilemma,” said Jim. “If I put down as partially meeting expectations, she will get a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) from HR. There will be tangible business goals and a series of meetings over three months. She will get constant feedback and oversight, and everything will be documented. It’s a way to get low performers out of the company.”
“Or,” Jim continued, “I can put meeting expectations, manage her myself, and hope to get her to a better place next year.”
“What does your gut tell you?” I asked.
“Look, the dream job for Julie would be in the purely research side, but it doesn’t exist anymore. The business needs are too high, and nothing is pure research anymore. My gut says to put meeting expectations and then read her the riot act. I would tell her how close she came to me putting partially meeting expectations and that she needs to focus and deliver on a different timeline.”
“How motivated would you feel if someone said that to you?” I asked.
Jim laughed. “You’re right, reading her the riot act and the whole tough guy approach would only make her more miserable. She responds to mentorship and encouragement.”
Jim saw she needed a mindset change. The company was pushing for more agile transformation and balancing long-term research with short-term deliverables so the brand can benefit sooner.
“She doesn’t have to change her research approach. She just has to change her reporting approach and show the stepping stones along the way.”
Jim also noted that he had to help her understand that when a budget is denied, it’s not because we don’t value the work. It’s because the company has to balance everyone’s needs. She can’t get a big budget every year. It’s a fairness issue.
“I’ll put it as a challenge for her to tease out the short-term deliverables. I believe in her to harness the data she has and be creative in delivering something in the near-term.”
Jim ended, “It will be more about feed-forward. I’ll let her know I believe in her and give her something positive to focus on. I’ll make sure she knows she is trusted and we value her experience.”
Jim felt good about his decision and felt it would be the best outcome for the employee and for the company.
He understood that how the employee felt about her job would determine how hard she worked to get results.
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