I have an employee that is absolutely dedicated to everything we do. She has dedicated her whole life to the business. When things don’t go well financially she offers to work for free.
Problem is that she sucks. I don’t know what to call it but it’s kind of like the opposite of the Midas touch, everything she touches turns to shit.
We are afraid to even give her the most simple of projects because she will find a way to create a disaster. She has zero self-awareness and thinks that she walks on water. She’s always trying to get involved in other people’s projects and that is a guaranteed way to either bring it to a grinding halt or bring it crashing down.
After saying it out loud the obvious answer is to fire her. But it is hard. She has been ingrained in everything we do since day one. She knows all of our secrets and all of our weaknesses. I’d rather not burn any bridges.
Would be nice just to find a way to tell her nicely that she sucks and we would like her to stay in her lane and only do the basic projects we assign.
That’s a “you” problem, mate, not a “her” problem. I’ve been fired before, and I can guarantee, it has almost zero to do with what the employee is doing, and more to do with what exactly you’re communicating to them that is motivating them to do what they’re doing.
Managers have almost zero visibility on what’s actually happening on the employee’s side, and that’s precisely the problem.
Being a manager has little to do with trying to get people to do things for you, and more to do with helping your team the best you can to get the work done the best everyone can. You’re supposed to be a convenience to them, not a counter that tracks if the KPI is ticking or not.
Good employees are willing to improve, so long as the manager has the competence to show them the direction to head in. 99% of cases involving some from of relationship breakdown is caused by lack of communication… or, often accurately, miscommunication.