The Awkward Handoff: Supervising a Coaster
Coaster (noun)
A little mat that keeps water rings from glassware off your nice mid-century coffee table, thank you.
The San Diego regional commuter train.
An underperforming employee who has been allowed to underperform for six months or more.
I coined this last definition of “coaster” just now, to recognize a specific leadership scenario I encounter frequently in my work with people moving up the management ladder.
As a manager, inheriting a Coaster is a unique challenge. It feels like starting the game of team performance from behind. You aren’t on the soccer field yet, you’re standing together in the parking lot.
Let me say this: Coasters aren’t bad people. They may not even know that there is this other level they could be operating at. Or they know, but they don’t know how to get there. Or they have an idea for how to get there, but experience leads them to think that they won’t get the help they need to get there.
As I say, about all of us, in my courses and coaching: Nobody wants to look stupid. Nobody wants to feel alone.
Where does the Coaster challenge come from? One of two kinds of gaps:
A gap in management capacity, where there were too many people to supervise, and not enough managers to do the supervising.
A gap in management and leadership skills by the previous manager or management team, creating a permissive performance culture with long-term low accountability.
Often it’s a bit of both gaps.
Either way, the wider organization is basically telling the newly assigned manager: “Tag, you’re it. This person needs to do better than they have been for a while.”
A wise leader sees that she needs to do a range of challenging things with the Coaster:
Build this new manager-supervisee relationship in a way that promotes trust and safety.
Establish the performance gap. Be clear that the Coaster needs to level up.
Establish clear goals and expectations for improvement: what needs to improve, by when, how the progress will be measured.
Provide resources and education to get the Coaster moving in the right direction.
Navigate the coaster’s valid resistance to change: “What changed? My performance was fine up until now. ” This is true!
Navigate any tension or conflict with this person’s former boss (who is often also the supervisor’s boss). The Coaster could go to their former boss for help defending against these new performance expectations. The new supervisor could become resentful of the former boss that it’s fallen to her to break the low-performance inertia. It can get messy.
It’s a lot to handle.
If you have a Coaster you support, you aren’t the first.
If you have handed off a Coaster to somebody else to supervise, with a sigh of relief and a little prayer of hope, you also aren’t the first. You can help the new supervisor-Coaster duo succeed.
For supervisors of Coasters, here are a few ideas for how to help your Coasters level up:
Pace yourself. Inertia is hard to change, and you want to establish trust and respect before you amp up the expectations and oversight. Don’t wait so long that you become another boss who grants implicit permission to coast, but don’t jump on the person in your first week with dramatic changes and pressure. (If somebody pressures you to get this person up to speed quickly, kindly remind them: “This person was allowed to underperform for quite a while before I got here. We will get there.”)
Get your boss to reinforce the level of performance expected. Verbally, in writing, with the whole team, with this person specifically, whatever is appropriate but not too heavy-handed. Different levels of management need to be saying the same thing. This also shows that these expectations aren’t personal. You aren’t picking on this person.
Make a plan for improvement over time, and put it in writing. Deadlines, additional training, numerical goals. Clarity is kindness, is a Brene Brown phrase I like. Be clear. Refer to the plan when you meet with this person, and have the Coaster track their own progress. A plan, i.e., activities over time, will help you and the Coaster understand that the changes you need to see aren’t supposed to happen overnight.
Acknowledge that this is a new ballgame for the Coaster. Let the person know you are there to support them. Help yourself be at ease with their discomfort as they stretch to meet these (new-to-them) expectations and level of oversight.
Practice diplomacy. It’s natural to need to vent about how unfair it is to be handed someone who wasn’t doing a good job for a long time, for you to start from behind with this person. Be careful how and with whom you express these thoughts and feelings, so they don’t backfire on you and undermine trust and collaboration across these different levels of staff and management.
The big general idea: Stay in humble, learning, experimenter mode. This is a chance to get better at leadership in about ten different ways at once. (So take your breaks!)