33: Managing Performance Issues with Josh Magsam

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode thirty-three of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is managing performance, so stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. Today I'd like to welcome Josh Maxam. Josh, can you introduce yourself?

Josh Magsam: 0:38

Yes, thanks. I'm Josh. I'm currently Senior Director of Partner Operations at Partner Hero. I've been there for about the last year. And I've been in operations and support management for about the last six years following a stint and academia.

Charlotte Ward: 0:54

Thanks, Josh. So the topic for this week is managing performance issues. And I'd love to hear what specific stories or advice you have in this area. How do you get by with managing those very difficult situations?

Josh Magsam: 1:07

You know, there's a few things that I've taken away because I've I've done some situations well, and I've done some situations not so well. It's a two-way street. Uh I find that this is certainly true of myself, but other managers and leaders that I've talked to, I think tend to fall into a similar line of thought, particularly early on in their career. And that is, gosh, I'm coaching someone's performance. Um, and if they fail, I I have failed too. But I I can look back at cases and understand where, you know, someone on the other side, the person I was managing, the same effort wasn't being put into it by both parties. And I've seen situations where managers didn't really put enough effort into coaching performance issues. But to be honest, that's rare. I think a lot of the managers I work with are very passionate about helping their people. And again, I think even more so early on. Um, you know, I I had a uh chat with a very junior manager a number of years ago who said, I'm I'm gonna keep my team together. I'm I'm not gonna lose anyone. Uh no one on this team is is going to fail. And that was just too much of a weight to put on themselves because you're dealing with other human beings.

Charlotte Ward: 2:18

Uh yeah, there's a lot of variables, right?

Josh Magsam: 2:21

Yeah, and they make their own decisions. Yeah, I know a lot of people who are kind of behind the scenes sort of go, Oh, oh gosh, a pip. Um, well, this isn't going to end well, is it? Right? We've gotten here, and now this is just sort of the the final slide to the inevitable. But I've seen some people pull out of those, and that's because they wanted to pull out of those. They they took that feedback and it it had to be presented well, and it had to be presented with with empathy, but also professionalism and clarity as good objective critique, not you know, personal feedback. But but the credit really goes to those people for saying, hey, I I I'm taking this feedback, I understand there's things I need to improve. And they wanted to learn and to grow, even beyond sort of the the gut check fear of gosh, I might lose my job. They were thinking, I need to grow. I this is something I've come up before, and and I will talk maybe about one case. It was my first case and and that I ever dealt with, and the first time I put someone on a PIP, we'd had a lot of communications issues, and um it kind of reached ahead, and there's quite a few people that were upset. You know, I was an academic, I was a teacher, so I put together what was mostly a lesson plan, more so than a pip. And right away I saw this person's commitment. Um they were coming back in every week having prepared and and knowing where their numbers were and knowing what they needed to talk about, right? And making real strides. And so at the end of it, it was a no-brainer. There wasn't a question, should we sign off on this, or well, how much of this did you get done? Continued to show that sense of, you know, I I learned valuable lessons there. There was feedback I needed to hear.

Charlotte Ward: 4:03

I think it's interesting that you referred to it contextually there as a lesson plan. Uh it's kind of speaks a lot to the coaching aspect of a pip or any or any performance conversation, right? And and I think also that ties in to one of the earlier elements you talked about about clarity, you know, that actually when when you are having these conversations around performance, that you have to be really specific. Otherwise it can be even if it is not actually, it can certainly be perceived to be personal.

Josh Magsam: 4:35

That's that's a great point. Uh it's it it is still part of that that person wanting to to embrace change, but the the way the message is carried is is a large part of it. Um if if you both got your your boxing gloves on going into the conversation, you know it's it's going to end poorly. If you come in and say genuinely, hey, I want to help you succeed here, and is is this clear to you, or do you understand the objectives?

Charlotte Ward: 5:03

I think also that clarity engages people more anyway. So you do get that buy-in from the person who needs who has the work to do, don't you? You get and and that builds the effort on both sides, I think, that clarity.

Josh Magsam: 5:17

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you both should know what needs to happen and next steps. You should both leave that conversation knowing um what needs to be accomplished by the next conversation, whether it's the next day or the next week or the next month. You know, that's you have to have a little bit of flexibility to understand that the landscape may shift. And I've seen plenty of cases where a manager and I puts together a really good plan, and about halfway through they're they're sort of going, gosh, this person is just not, it's not coming together, right? I want to see them succeed. They're just not executing on this. What do I do? One of the hard lessons is there's only so much you can do. And in a lot of those cases, it's actually just the person on the other side is is just not willing to commit. Um, they're checked out, or they really there's something else going on, and this isn't the the job, the organization, what have you for them in the long run.

Charlotte Ward: 6:11

Or simply just the right time. I mean, you know, we there are a lot of factors there, yeah.

Josh Magsam: 6:15

Yeah. Absolutely.

Charlotte Ward: 6:16

You're right, you're right. I think that that buy-in from both parties is really important. But actually, yeah, sometimes you get to the point where if you're having those conversations and for whatever reason you're not aware of all of the factors that have led to that point, that it doesn't always set it up well to succeed as a process. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash 33 for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.