Scenario 2: Max wants to call the shots…
Max is an ambitious member of the Product Team who has had a high-performing year so far, in many cases surpassing his goals, especially when it comes to speed of delivery.
For example, Max recently rolled out 4 stages of a product redesign (Feature X) within the time period that had been assigned to delivery of the first 2 stages.
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💡 Max’s capabilities is Exceeds and that is the indicator you will give them today.
However, you need to give Max a rating of Meets Some for Values.
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💡 Max has reviewed both their capabilities and their values as Exceeds.
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- Max’s results often stem from them making ambitious promises and then directing in detail how these should be actioned by other departments.
- Max will send repeated emails and Slack messages - many of these outside normal working hours - with a list of tasks that need to be prioritised. Additionally, Max will assign these tasks to the same team members time and again - by-passing their Managers in the process.
- Max is only really happy working with 1 Marketing Manager, Cal. With other members of the Sales, Max has developed a habit of marking up their work in PDF format and giving them extensive notes and corrections via email, cc-ing their Head of in the process. You’ve asked Max not to do this, countless times, but they keep doing it - insisting it’s part of ‘Creating Impact’
- Recently, Cal was working on another project and couldn’t action Max’s request in time. Zee, a new member of the Marketing team offered to step in. Max was unhappy about this and emailed Cal to see if anything could be done, saying that they couldn’t risk having “somebody just churn out some mediocre crap on this one”.
- Unfortunately, Max didn’t see that Zee was also cc’d on that email chain. Zee immediately replied saying how shocked and frustrated she was that Max had come to the conclusion that her work would be mediocre without having ever seen an example of it. Max replied saying “I’m sorry if you’re offended. Anyone will tell you I have high standards - happy to take a look at some examples of your work.”
- All of this happened out of normal working hours and, by the time you read the email chain the next day, Zee had sent Max examples of her work and Max had sent an email reluctantly agreeing to ‘let her have a stab’ at the project.
- You know Max doesn’t see this behaviour as a big deal and will be surprised that it has had a negative impact on their values rating.