It’s the leader’s job to make sure the assignment fits the person.
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 fourth post in Jim’s series.
“Coaching has changed me a lot,” said Jim as we started our session. He worked in a large, fast-paced corporation where changes and demands were constant, and it was always a challenge to manage the team under those circumstances.
“I used to be logical about decisions and expected others to be the same. It didn’t always work out, and I never figured out why. Now I think a lot more about emotions—my own and others—in decision-making and in communication. When I feel the pressure coming from leadership to do something, I still have to make sure my team stays passionate to keep them performing, even amid all these changes.”
Jim also noted that his boss, Charlie, who is a great guy and a mentor, usually considers emotions first when decision making and communicating.
“It’s apparent to me that he communicates for results and deliverables. It puts me under a lot of pressure, but he’s clear and he makes sure I know that he believes in me. That means a lot to me.”
Jim was trying to do the same for his team and working to understand Mark. Mark started on Jim’s team four years ago as a project leader. He’s smart, and he was killing it for the first two years. That’s when I moved up, and he took my place. He’s been running a lab team of four people since then and reporting to me.”
Jim went on: “Last year, Charlie and I gave Mark more responsibility for communication with our local corporate team to make sure our goals align with larger company goals. The leadership at corporate was all new, and the local and global teams were all trying to figure out what to focus on.”
The new leaders communicated that they didn’t want the labs working on low hanging fruit. In research, the company wanted to be the leader. They wanted R & D to prioritize academic collaborations to get cutting edge innovations.
They also wanted a lot of transformation with AI in clinical research. Jim and his boss Charlie thought Mark was best to stay on top of these priorities.
Jim told Mark what they needed and appointed him as the point person.
“Looking back,” Jim said, “I can see that decision was rushed and our key mistake was that we didn’t talk it through with Mark first.”
Mark tried to put an academic collaboration project on the road map, but the budget was never approved. It turned out that another local team had their own project. He was also frustrated trying to champion what they could do in the digital space.
After budgets came out, Mark started looking like one of the low performers. In Q1, Jim and Charlie sent him to a conference in Paris. Charlie specifically asked for photos to present to the team, but the photos Mark took were not usable for a presentation.
On his own lab project, Mark was not performing at the level they expected. Jim had asked him to start working on the next project, but he was dragging his feet.
Every time Jim had a 1:1, Mark didn’t offer much, and Jim had to start asking questions to pull anything out of him. When Jim asked him to take the first step on the new project, he pushed back saying he didn’t have the project framed. Jim didn’t even request a budget for it.
“And there is a clear sense of frustration from him, especially on the digital side. He’s not enjoying the role of being the point person and pushing global priorities.”
Now, Jim said, they have directives to push even more digital projects on the research side.
“I tried to explain to Mark that we have to show progress, but he’s not showing any progress at all. He just seems stuck.”
Recently, Charlie suggested that maybe Joe could be in charge of new initiatives.
Jim was hesitant and asked Charlie, “should I ask Joe first or Mark? I don’t want Mark to think we’re undermining him or going around him.”
Charlie advised me to go to Joe first: “We need a different person who can show progress and passion even if we don’t have a clear view. Maybe Joe can do that. It’s a good opportunity and we can take other things off his plate if it leads to a promotion.”
Jim took that as a lesson learned. When you give someone a chance and they don’t run with it, you can’t spend all your time waiting. Find someone who wants the opportunity.
So, Jim went to Joe to ask if he was open to it.
Joe’s immediate response was no. His workload was really high now, and he didn’t want Mark to feel he was taking his role.
But a few days later, Joe came back and said he was open to trying and growing in that way. He wanted to try it for six months and discuss.
When Jim notified Mark, of course he was disappointed.
I suggested that Jim give him a self-evaluation to help him reflect for their next 1:1. “It will give you a sense of his mindset, and you’ll be better prepared to help him out as he figures out how to go forward.”
At the end of the session, Jim reflected that he had learned a few useful lessons from watching Mark:
- Use 1:1s to help my team be positive, think through their week, and have a vision for success.
- Don’t volunteer someone for a new assignment. Always have them come to it willingly and with passion.
- If someone is not doing well in a new role, switch them out fast and put them where they can be productive. Everyone here has earned their right to be here. It’s my job to make sure the assignment fits the person.
Overall, he learned a truth that many leaders eventually come to: how people feel about their work determines how successful they are, so it’s important to keep the emotional level in mind to improve performance.
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