Managers – in businesses large and small – are generally hopeless at confrontation, particularly around issues of under-performance. This is corrosive.

Every time a managers fails to confront performance issues, the company suffers. Inadequate people are rewarded for their failures, and talented, worthy, effective people are essentially being blocked from the roles that they would perform much better.

In many cases that we’ve seen, the people with the smoothest delivery, who go out of their way to curry favour with senior management, get the best jobs… and fail… and astonishingly are not called out for those shortcomings.

Arguably, larger corporations can absorb these under-performers. I would say, on the other hand, their mistakes will have a greater financial impact the larger the company is. I’ve seen incompetence, and the inability of managers to confront it, bring global corporations down.

In smaller organisations, tolerating incompetence has an equally catastrophic effect, where company performance relies on fewer people.

We all want people to be treated well and given a fair, but time-limited, chance to succeed. But people are paid to do their jobs… properly. If they don’t, then don’t let them continue. Act decisively and courageously.